Capitol Broadcasting worked with BE to launch ATSC 3.0 on their station in Wilmington NC, W30ER-LD. Capitol Broadcasting’s WRAL-TV has the distinction of being both the first HDTV – ATSC 1.0 station and the first full-time simulcast ATSC 3.0 station in the United States.
Broadcast Electronics initially installed the Genesis TV-1k2 transmitter in 2019 for WARZ-CD operating in ATSC 1.0. BE engineer Jeff Clampitt worked closely with the WRAL engineering team including Pete Sockett, Matt Brandes, Mike Mory, and Dan Lane for planning, commissioning, and training to support the conversion to ATSC 3.0. The BE transmitter worked seamlessly with WRAL’s ATSC 3.0 ecosystem including Harmonic encoding and Trivini scheduler.
“Capitol Broadcasting has been at the forefront of innovation of NextGen TV with ATSC 3.0 and extending this to our station in Wilmington was the next logical step. We currently carry WILM’s Local Programming as well as MeTV and H&I TV on the new ATSC 3.0 channel and intend to take full advantage of the NextGen capabilities including datacasting and mobility,” said Pete Sockett, Director of Engineering and Operations at Capitol Broadcasting. “The BE transmitter has been extremely reliable since turn on, and the transition to ATSC 3.0 was smooth and simple, we couldn’t be more pleased.”
All BE television transmitters feature Pro TV inside technology providing a software-defined exciter that is the most advanced and future-proof modulation solution in the Broadcasting market. Support for IP content distribution with 4x IP Gb ports is standard. BE’s exclusive Opti Power advanced precorrection and crest factor reduction software yields increased MER performance and efficiency that works in concert with next-generation high-efficiency Doherty amplifier technology to reduce energy consumption and lower operating costs for long-term, reliable operation.
“We are delighted to partner with Capitol Broadcasting to continue their NextGen TV leadership and thank them for trusting Broadcast Electronics to help deliver their content to the Wilmington area.” said Rich Redmond, President, and COO of Broadcast Electronics , “We are thankful to have a very dedicated team of broadcast professionals at the Broadcast Electronics who understand the challenges of operating radio and TV stations in a 24/7/365 environment, and stand ready to simplify and accelerate the transition to the NextGen TV technology.”
