Sutro Tower Upgrade Will Provide Optimized Solutions for San Francisco Bay Area Broadcasters
RAYMOND, Maine -- Dec. 12, 2007 -- Dielectric Communications, a division of SPX and a leader in broadcast antenna systems, today announced that Sutro Tower, Inc., has selected Dielectric as the provider of antennas, combiners, and transmission lines for its tower site in San Francisco. Sutro Tower‘s purchase, scheduled to be installed over the next three years, will complete the facility‘s transition to digital broadcasting, improve the systems coverage area, and allow the television broadcasters who use the tower to provide maximized DTV service to Bay Area customers.
“We‘ve had a long, successful history of working with Dielectric and are pleased to continue our partnership as we finish our conversion to all-digital broadcasting. Everyone we‘ve dealt with at Dielectric has been very knowledgeable not only about the products, but also about the requirements of our system specifically,” said Gene Zastrow, Sutro Tower‘s general manager. “We have a pretty unique tower site with a large number of stations and with many physical constraints due to our location in the middle of San Francisco. Dielectric did a wonderful job at coming up with solutions that met both our budget and our specific broadcasting needs. Our decision to work with them was based equally on our own positive experience with previous installations and on Dielectric‘s industry reputation as a high-quality supplier.”
The Sutro Tower installation will include Dielectric‘s TFU-WB UHF slot cavity antennas, TFU-JSC/VP high-power pylon antennas, and TUC and TUA wideband UHF panel antennas, as well as the associated combiners, transmission lines, and other supporting components. The new installation will benefit the 11 television, five FM radio, and 20 other commercial companies who lease space on the tower.
“Our purchase from Dielectric is a win-win situation,” added Zastrow. “Not only will we keep pace with the FCC‘s digital TV mandate, we also will be able to overcome the limitations of our current equipment and bring our leasing stations to full-power broadcasting. For the viewers in the Bay Area, this translates into nothing short of better television.”
“Dielectric is proud to continue its long-standing relationship with Sutro Tower, Inc. and the Bay Area broadcasters through the maximization of the DTV systems at Sutro,” said Dielectric Vice President of Sales Jay Martin.
Additional information on Dielectric‘s full range of broadcast antenna systems for radio, mobile media, and television is available at www.dielectric.com.
# # #
About Sutro Tower, Inc.
Sutro Tower, Inc. was formed in 1968 by four San Francisco television stations with the purpose of constructing a common transmitter and antenna facility for many of the San Francisco market stations. This new facility would replace several sites that were less than ideal for optimum coverage. The resultant facility was completed in 1973 and currently serves 11 television stations, five FM radio stations and a variety of wireless communications users from school busses and taxi cabs to public safety agencies and wireless data providers. The ownership remains with the four original stations.
About Dielectric Communications (a unit of SPX Corporation)
Based in Raymond, Maine, Dielectric Communications (www.dielectric.com) is the nation‘s largest manufacturer of broadcast antenna systems for radio, mobile media, and television, and also the world‘s largest manufacturer of aviation obstruction lighting sold under its Flash Technology brand. Dielectric Communications is a leading provider of system and asset monitoring (M2M) solutions and operates a global operations center in Franklin, Tenn.
Dielectric is a unit of SPX Corporation, a Fortune 500 multi-industry manufacturing leader. The company offers highly specialized engineered solutions to solve critical problems for customers. More information is available at www.spx.com.
