Nearly one year since Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, most TV stations remain dark due to widespread destruction of the country’s infrastructure and power grid. To help broadcasters resume services to their communities and meet accelerated repack deadlines, Dielectric expedited antenna orders to the island’s TV stations impacted by the storms.
Dielectric received 11 orders from Puerto Rican broadcasters, 10 are for spectrum repack antennas. The 11th order will replace an antenna damaged in the storms. The orders include top-mounted and side-mounted primary antennas; they’re in various stages of manufacturing and shipping.
The company has close to 500 other repack antenna orders in various stages of completion. After consulting with the island’s broadcasters, Dielectric generated technical proposals for antenna systems that address their unique needs, such as withstanding Category 5 force winds.
“While the spectrum repack is challenging for all U.S. broadcasters, those in our ‘51st state’ are starting from scratch,” said Dielectric VP Sales Jay Martin. “During the intense storms, many of their TV towers collapsed, and essential infrastructure for fiber networks, microwave links, and electrical power was damaged. Those that escaped damage managed to stay on the air provided they can fuel their generators during regular power outages.”
To accelerate the restoration process, the FCC amended its spectrum repack transition plan to re-assign TV stations across Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to a new Pre-Phase 1 deadline of August 1. Before, Puerto Rican stations were not slated to move until either Phase 3 or 10, with deadlines of 2019 or 2020, respectively.
July 27, 2018
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