Branding GPB Channels Digital: 6 (VHF) | Slogan Bringing You the Best Affiliations PBS | |
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Subchannels 20.1 - GPB/PBS HD (1080i)
20.2 - GPB Create TV (480i)
20.3 - GPB Knowledge (480i) Translators W11DD-D 11 Hartwell/Royston | ||
WCES-TV channel 20 is a non-commercial educational television station licensed to Wrens, Georgia, USA. WCES-TV is part of the Georgia Public Broadcasting public television network and carries programming from PBS, GPB and other sources. The station serves Augusta and the surrounding east-central Georgia and west-central South Carolina area, along the Savannah River valley (also known locally as the "Georgia-Lina" region). WCES-TV's transmitter and radio antenna are located in Wrens, its city of license.
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The station chose to keep its digital on channel 2 in the first-round digital channel election, but requested channel 6 in the third round. This is because the low VHF (band I) has a lot of RF noise, which is worst on the lowest channels.
The radio tower is a 446.7-meter-high guyed mast, located at 33°15'34"N and 82°17'8"W. It was built in 1966.
Digital programming
WCES-TV broadcasts the following digital subchannels:
Translators
Both translators are or were located near the state's border with South Carolina, in areas where coverage from a full-powered GPB transmitter is insufficient, due to the distance from the main transmitters and the hilly terrain in northeast Georgia.
W22AC was temporarily off-air for two months in early 2008, when GPB broadcast engineers had to borrow its TV transmitter to get WACS-TV back on-air. That station was destroyed by a tornado in March 2007, and had to begin broadcasting again within a year, or its license would have been automatically canceled by law.
History
WCES-TV channel 20 began on September 12, 1966 on the National Educational Television (NET) TV network as the sixth educational station in Georgia as the 5th station of the statewide network and on October 5, 1970 it and all nine stations affiliated to NET in Georgia became part of the new Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Public television network. Its digital TV signal on channel 2 started in 2003.