TUCSON, Ariz.—KUAT, the Arizona Public Media (AZPM) station here, is now on air with a new Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark 55kW PARALLAX UHF DTV transmitter.
The station replaced its primary IOT unit on Mt. Bigelow, which had been on air for more than 20 years. The old transmitter had incurred irreparable damage during winter storms, forcing the station to operate at half power under Special Temporary Authority (STA) from the Federal Communications Commission. Comark supplied, installed and proofed the new PARALLAX HPTV-PRLX-U32 DTV transmitter to meet that station’s total power output requirement of 54.83kW, the company said.
The new transmitter consists of two rack cabinets. Each is equipped with 16 UHF power amplifiers. The PARALLAX transmitter was delivered with dual EXACT-V2 ATSC exciters (in main/standby configuration) and the liquid cooling system., Comark said.
The company also supplied the complete RF mask filter system incorporating Constant Impedance Filter (CIF) technology and the high-power external hybrids for combining both of the transmitter’s PA cabinets, it said.
“Our new 55kW PARALLAX transmitter has solid state liquid cooled design to meet our current ATSC 1.0 distribution across all of southern Arizona and is Next Gen (ATSC 3.0) ready for the future” said Chris Homer, AZPM chief broadcast engineer.
The KUAT staff and Comark coordinated shipment, offloading and placement of the new equipment in the station’s transmitter facility. Mechanical installation was completed in late May, which was followed by a turn on during which Comark performed complete proof-of-performance testing, the company said.
“Comark worked very closely with the engineering management of KUAT to provide a complete solution for their site’s unique requirements,” said Joe Turbolski, vice president of sales and marketing at the company.
“Our program management performed a detailed site survey to ensure there were no surprises during the delivery and mechanical installation. And our field services group took special care to ensure the system was installed to provide trouble-free operation for years to come.”
More information is available on the company’s website.
