Wow! its events like this that make the whole tour worthwhile. Dave Vincent, the GM of WLOX welcomed us to the station and gave us the grand tour, explaining how the station survived Katrina and still managed to stay on the air. The Gulfport area still looks like someone took an eraser and wiped part of the town clean of its buildings. One of the interesting issues facing WLOX is that after the analog shut off they will be shifting from Ch 39 back to 13 and will be reducing their power from 750KW to about 9KW. Now even though VHF propagates farther at lower power, this reduction in power will likely reduce their effective coverage area significantly. We wish them the best of luck and the new ClearStream antennas and possibly the addition of the high VHF ClearStream 5 should mitigate some of the problems for many of their viewers.
We were even featured in their newsroom on their 11am show and live remotes from the Best Buy on the, 4pm, 5PM and 6PM newscasts! What great support from this station and it was evident by the turnout, where an estimate 1200 people showed up for a chance to win an antenna.
The manager of the Best Buy reported that over a hundred people had come into the store looking for a ClearStream in the week prior to the big game, but as soon as their shipment arrives they are sold out within hours. We are working with the management of these stores to make sure there will be enough antennas to help people who are struggling with DTV reception.