Smoky Hills Public Television

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = Smoky Hills Public Television
city =
station_
station_slogan = Making Kansas a Better Place to Live and Work
station_branding =
analog = see table below
digital = see table below
other_chs =
affiliations = PBS
network =
founded =
airdate = November 10, 1982
location = western Kansas
callsign_meaning = see table below
former_callsigns =
former_channel_numbers =
owner = Smoky Hills Public Television Corporation
licensee =
sister_stations =
former_affiliations =
effective_radiated_power = see table below
HAAT = see table below
class =
facility_id = see table below
coordinates = see table below
homepage = [http://www.pbs.org/shptv/ www.pbs.org/shptv]

Smoky Hills Public Television is the PBS member network for 52 mostly rural counties in western Kansas. The network is headquartered in a historic native stone building in Bunker Hill, just east of Russell.

The network consists of full-power analog stations KOOD (channel 9) in Hays and KSWK (channel 3) in Lakin, along with digital-only stations KDCK (channel 21) in Dodge City and KWKS (channel 19) in Colby. KOOD is the flagship station, with its transmitter in southern Russell County, approximately 10 miles south-southeast of Russell.

KOOD annually televises three championship events sponsored by the Kansas State High School Activities Association: the eight-man football title games in November, the Class 3-2-1A wrestling tournament in February, and the Class 1A basketball tournament title games in March.

In addition, there are seven low-power translators:
*K69DB Hoxie (channel 69)
*K66CD Phillipsburg (channel 66)
*K64BS Concordia (channel 64)
*K15CG Oakley (channel 15)
*K23BU Goodland (channel 23)
*K32BY Oberlin (channel 32)
*K39BS Norton (channel 39)

The Hoxie translator is owned by the government of Sheridan County, the others are owned by the network.

The Smoky Hills Public Television Corporation was founded in 1978 to bring PBS to western Kansas. The region is part of the Wichita market, and up to that time much of the area got PBS programming on cable via either Wichita's PBS station, KPTS, or Denver's PBS affiliate, KRMA. KOOD was the first station in the network to sign on the air, on November 10, 1982. KSWK followed on March 15, 1989. KDCK signed on on March 3 1998 and flash-cut to digital in 2003. KWKS signed on as a digital-only station in June 2007.

The combined broadcast power of the network's four full-power stations and six translators covers almost half of Kansas. Much of this area watches it on cable, which is all but essential for an acceptable signal in most of this vast area. Since 2005, it has also been available on the Wichita DirecTV and Dish Network feeds, boosting its potential viewership to over 1.5 million people in Kansas and Nebraska.

tations

Notes:
*1. KDCK and KWKS are digital-only stations. KDCK flash-cut to digital in 2003.

External links

* [http://www.pbs.org/shptv/ SHPTV website]
*TVQ|KOOD
*TVQ|KSWK
*TVQ|KDCK
*TVQ|KWKS
*TVQ|K69DB
*TVQ|K66CD
*TVQ|K64BS
*TVQ|K15CG
*TVQ|K23BU
*TVQ|K32BY
*TVQ|K39BS
*BIA|KOOD|TV|TV
*BIA|KSWK|TV|TV
*BIA|KDCK|TV|TV
*BIA|KWKS|TV|TV