Antenna Problem Takes Boston Stations Off-Air

Four Boston TV stations were knocked off the air Sunday night when a power divider apparently failed in their shared antenna. Boston.com, in the article Mystery outage plagues Boston TV stations said the outage affected WBZ-TV (CBS), WSBK-TV (My Network), WCVB-TV (ABC) and WGBX-TV (PBS).

Tuesday Andrew Gauthier, wrote in TVSpy on MediaBistro.com Boston Stations Return to Air Following Sunday Antenna Malfunction. His article said "technicians moved their signals to the tower of PBS station WGBH and transferred WGBH's programming to WCVB's auxiliary antenna." WCVB was able to quickly switch to its auxiliary antenna, although at reduced power.

Boston Business Journal reporter Galen Moore, in his article Needham tower fault takes 4 Boston TV stations off the air said the TV tower is owned by Richland Towers. Richland vice president Kevin Busselman said Richland does not own the broadcast equipment that failed, but that Richland has an employee at the site to work on resolving the problem.

High power antennas sometimes fail and the Boston antenna problem illustrates the value in having a back-up antenna.

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Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack. A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.