Dielectric Communications, a division of the company SPX specializing in transmission antennas, announced the launch of a line of digital antennas and filters for low-power television (LPTV) stations. The new product family is designed to provide a cost-effective and easy-to-install solution for these stations in response to the tender for LPTV stations and repeaters to be presented by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) next January – the first in 11 years.
"LPTV stations play an important role in the community by offering a wide range of educational services and spiritual programming, usually to populations that were previously underserved," said Garrett VanAtta, president of Dielectric Communications. "With the upcoming FCC tender we saw an opportunity to apply our expertise in the high-power market to deliver solutions that respond to the needs of LPTV stations."
This new product line will allow LPTV and DTS (Digital Theater System/Sound/Surround) broadcasters, as well as repeaters, to optimize digital coverage with an input power capacity of up to 2 kW. The easy-to-install antennas are designed to operate on channels from the 470 MHz to 860 MHz band frequency.
Although LPTV stations were exempt from the transition to digital, which culminated earlier this year, their analog signals may be blocked by some of the converters viewers have purchased to enable digital reception.
As a result, many stations are looking for low-cost solutions to convert their broadcasts to digital and take advantage of the FCC tender that begins, without geographical restriction, on January 25, 2010. After this date, the FCC will only accept applications for lpTV's new digital channels and repeaters.
