SOUTHWICK, Mass.—WHRO-TV, the Hampton Roads Educational Telecommunications Association pubic broadcaster serving Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News, Va., deployed a Comark 68kW Parallax UHF transmitter this summer as part of its TV spectrum repack work, Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark has announced.
The station’s new HPTV-PRLX-U42 68kW transmitter, upgradeable to ATSC 3.0, consists of three rack cabinets each equipped with 14 UHF Asymmetric Broadband Doherty power amplifiers. The transmitter has dual Exact-V2 ATSC exciters (in main/standby configuration) and a liquid cooling system, the company said.
The company supplied the complete RF system, which includes Constant Impedance Filter (CIF) technology and high-power external hybrids for combining each of the transmitter’s PA cabinets. Comark managed shipping, offloading and placement of the new equipment in the station’s transmitter facility, it said.
The transmitter was needed to meet the station’s Phase 9 spectrum repack deadline. While mechanical work was completed in late March to meet the phase deadline, COVID-19 delayed the station’s actual transition till July 3. Comark assisted the station in turning on the new transmitter and performed complete proof-of-performance testing in late June, it said.
“COMARK worked with the management of WHRO to provide a complete solution for their repack requirements,” said Joe Turbolski, company vice president of Sales and Marketing. “The new transmitter installation was a tight fit into the existing facility, so we performed a detailed site survey and system design to ensure there were no surprises during the mechanical installation.”
More information is available on the company’s website.
