After three months of work, a new broadcast tower for ABC 17 and Fox 22, which are based in Columbia, became fully operational this week.
General Manager Curtis Varns said the tower is located in Moniteau County, south of Prairie Home. It replaced a 50-year-old tower that had been in disrepair.
"We did have to delay the final switch over a couple of days because last week sleet fell and that meant our workers couldn't get up on the new 1,100-foot tower until the temperatures warmed up and melted that icy precipitation," Varns said.
Varns said they are asking viewers with digital or outdoor antennas to unplug their antennas, scan for channels, plug the antennas back in and scan channels again to regain signal.
While the tower work was being done, the stations used a temporary tower, which was lower than the original tower and transmitted a lower power signal. That led to viewers on the fringes of their coverage area having difficulties at times with picking up the signal.
"What we have now is much better than what we had," Varns said. "The tower workers will probably stay another couple of days to make sure everything is OK, but there shouldn't be any work take place that would affect the signal through the day."
When work on the new tower began, all channel 22 substations went off the air. Varns said they are working to replace the transmitter that was broadcasting those substations. It will be housed on the new antenna.
"We'll hopefully get that installed within the week, and that will bring us back to eight stations like we had before the tower work began," Varns said. "We are working on possibly adding another substation in the near future."