History Repeats Itself, This Time In Richmond, VA

[Laurence Glavin]

As we approach the first anniversary of the Great Boston TV Station Fricasseed Antenna, history has repeated itself, this time in Richmond, VA.
Atop a tower not far from the Virginia Capital City, sparks began to fly in the antenna providing over-the-air viewers in that market with
three of the broadcast television stations in that Metropolitan area. In Needham, it took five months for the malfunctioning
antenna to be lowered to the ground, shipped to its manufacturer for repairs, retuned to its home on Cedar Street and hoisted
into place. The affected stations, WGBH-TV, WBZ-TV, WCVB, WGBX and WSBK, operated with reduced power on auxiliary
antennas (I believe only WGBH-TV applied for an STA until the situation was fixed; maybe the others had long-ago-authorized
auxiliary antennas already). Now the Richmond stations will be forced to do the same or people not on cable of the dish
may have to watch some of their favorites shows at relatives' or neighbors' homes or at the nearest pub (and the problem with that is...).

Here's a link to a TV Spy story that also provides a link to the Richmond Times-Dispatch coverage. Subsequent to the article
at that paper, at least for now, there's a comment by me that some of you might quibble about:

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/antenna-problem-causes-signal-disruption-at-3-richmond-stations_b84779