WBGU-TV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WBGU-TV
city =
station_
station_slogan =
station_branding = WBGU
analog = 27 (UHF)
digital = 56 (UHF)
affiliations = PBS
airdate = February 10, 1964
location = Bowling Green, Ohio
callsign_meaning = Bowling
Green
State University
former_callsigns =
former_channel_numbers = 70 (1964-1973)
57 (1973-1986)
owner = Bowling Green State University
licensee =
sister_stations =
former_affiliations = NET (1964-1970)
effective_radiated_power = 110 kW (digital)
erp_temporary = 1 megawatt (analog)
190 kW (digital)
HAAT = 320 m (both)
class =
facility_id = 6568
coordinates = coord|41|8|11.9|N|83|54|23.7|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.wbgu.org/ www.wbgu.org]

WBGU-TV is a television station affiliated with the Public Broadcasting Service, owned and operated by Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Unlike its companion radio station, WBGU (FM), WBGU-TV is not primarily operated by students at the university.

The station was founded in 1964 and currently operates at the Tucker Center for Telecommunications on the BGSU campus. (While officially part of the BGSU campus, the Tucker Center is actually located two blocks south of Wooster Street, which marks much of the southern boundary of the campus.) Each weekday during the academic term of public schools in the Great Black Swamp region, WBGU-TV broadcasts six hours of educational programming provided (and, in some cases, created) by the Northwest Ohio Educational Technology Foundation. The NWOET is operated at the Tucker Center, but is a non-profit state agency separate from the university.

History

On February 10, 1964, WBGU-TV (originally licensed to Lima but operating in Bowling Green) broadcast for the first time, and, unusually for a U.S. television station, would undergo two frequency changes in its first two decades. The station first operated on channel 70, and moved to channel 57 in 1973; it would move to channel 27 in 1986. [http://intranet.nwoet.org/about/history.php] The station first broadcasted from a small studio located in the university's South Hall. After the Moore Musical Arts Center was built in 1979, the university's radio stations and telecommunications department (then the department of radio, television, and film) moved to West Hall, which formerly housed the university's college of music. Sometime after that, WBGU-TV moved to a new building located at 245 Troup Avenue in Bowling Green; the building was renamed the Tucker Center on May 6, 1994.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, WBGU maintained a low-powered repeater in Fort Wayne, Indiana on channel 39 (later to affiliate with Indianapolis' WFYI), which became full-powered WFWA in 1985.

Today, WBGU-TV broadcasts to nineteen counties in northwestern and west central Ohio including the markets of Toledo and Lima; depending on the antenna used, WBGU's signal could be tuned in as far west as Fort Wayne and as far north as southwestern Washtenaw County, Michigan.

Digital TV

WBGU-DT

WBGU-DT began broadcasting in August of 2003. The digital signal of WBGU is multiplexed:

Trivia

In Toledo, Buckeye Cablesystem carries WBGU-TV on cable channel 57, which is, ironically, the station's previous channel number on the UHF dial.

External links

* [http://www.wbgu.org/ WBGU-TV website]
* [http://www.wbgu.org/community/documentary WBGU documentaries]
* [http://www.nwoet.org/ Northwest Ohio Educational Technology Foundation]
* [http://www.bgsu.edu/map/buildings/tucker.html The Tucker Center for Telecommunications]
*TVQ|WBGU
*BIA|WBGU|TV|TV