The KLTV-Tyler tower antenna was an NGS Benchmark CR1284 TYLER TELEVISION STA KLTV MAST. This waymarked tower was the primary transmitter until 1996, when the station moved and built a new transmitter. This waymarked tower became the backup. It was put into emergency service in 2006 when the new tower collapsed the day before the Super Bowl way supposed to air over KLTV. My photos dates from a find on this benchmark from 2009.
In 2016 this waymarked tower was finally taken down and dismantled.
From Wikipedia: (
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"KLTV, virtual and VHF digital channel 7, is an ABC-affiliated television station licensed to Tyler, Texas, United States. The station is owned by Raycom Media. KLTV maintains studio facilities located on West Ferguson Street in Downtown Tyler (located between the Smith County and the United States courthouses), and its transmitter is located in rural northern Smith County (near the Wood County line).
History
The station first signed on the air on October 14, 1954; it was founded by the locally based company Buford Television, which was owned by Lucille Buford. KLTV has been an ABC affiliate since its debut, however it initially carried the network as a shared primary affiliation with CBS and NBC; the station also aired programming from the DuMont Television Network on a secondary basis until 1955. The station originally operated from studio facilities on Texas Loop 323 on the east side of Tyler. In 1964, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) collapsed Lufkin and Nacogdoches into the Tyler market. Soon afterward, the Buford family bought KTRE and converted it into a semi-satellite of KLTV.
KLTV lost the CBS affiliation in September 1984, when Longview-based KLMG-TV (channel 51, now Fox affiliate KFXK-TV) signed on.
It retained a secondary affiliation with NBC until KETK-TV (channel 56) signed on in March 1987, resulting in channel 7 becoming an exclusive ABC affiliate.
Buford Television owned KLTV and KTRE until 1989, when it sold the stations to Jackson, Mississippi-based Civic Communications.
In 1996, KLTV relocated its operations from its longtime studios on Texas Loop 323 in eastern Tyler to a new facility downtown, located in a former savings loan branch and office complex near the Smith County courthouse; the former studio facility was demolished in November 2007. Civic merged with Liberty Corporation in 2002, which in turn merged with current owner Raycom Media in 2006.
At approximately 7:30 a.m. on February 3, 2006 (one day after Raycom officially took ownership of the station), KLTV's 1,078-foot (329 m) broadcast transmitter in Red Springs collapsed taking both its over-the-air analog and digital signals as well as radio station KVNE (89.5 FM) off the air; no one was reported injured as a result.
. . . KLTV re-established an analog signal at reduced power from its former studio and transmitter location in eastern Tyler within 13 hours of the collapse. No cause for the collapse has been disclosed to date.
A new Harris transmitter – on a tower slightly less than half the height of the one that collapsed – was installed the following day, allowing resumption of full-power broadcasts from the Tyler site, allowing over-the-air viewers to watch ABC's broadcast of Super Bowl XL over its analog signal; the digital signal was restored several days later. . . .
Its analog transmitter equipment was not damaged and was supplemented at the original tower site with a newer transmitter. However, its over-the-air high definition and digital television transmission equipment was a total loss.
In March and April 2007, KLTV ran a "Flip the Switch" promotion to promote the completion of the new Red Springs tower. Viewers were urged to submit 30-second videos to show why they should be selected to turn on the tower, with the winner being selected by popular vote on the station's website. On April 17, 2007 at approximately 6:58 p.m., contest winner Jeff Heimer officially flipped the switch to turn on the new transmitter and tower. . .
Digital television
Digital channels
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[4]
7.1 720p 16:9 KLTV DT Main KLTV programming / ABC
7.2 4:3 Bounce Bounce TV
7.3 16:9 La Vida Telemundo
On digital subchannel 7.2, the station carries Bounce TV; the subchannel is also carried on Suddenlink Communications digital channel 247. The subchannel launched on December 14, 2005 as the "StormTracker 24/7 Weather Channel," a local weather service consisting of temperatures, weather conditions and a live feed of the station's Doppler radar (branded as the "StormTracker 7 Live Doppler Network") on a rotating schedule; the subchannel affiliated with This TV in December 2009, it later switched to Bounce TV on January 1, 2012. On digital subchannel 7.3, the station carries Telemundo; the subchannel is also carried on Suddenlink channel 22.
Analog-to-digital conversion
The station installed its digital transmitter tower on September 23, 2005; on December 14, KLTV became the second television station in East Texas to launch a digital signal, broadcasting on VHF channel 10. KLTV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition VHF channel 10 to channel 7 for post-transition operations."
ANYHOO -- In 1978 I (Mama Blaster) used to spend my summers with my dad living in Tyler, 120 miles east of Dallas. At the time, KLTV was the only TV station in Tyler and it aired the most popular evening programs from all 3 networks. This was a personal problem for me since my beloved NBC police dramas were not aired in Tyler because CBS and ABC shows (like The Waltons and The Love Boat) were had higher Nielsen ratings, so KLTV aired the higher-rated show in each time slot, and those were NEVER mine!
This was before VCRs, so it's not like I could tape it -- STONE AGE TV TIME.
But I could live with that perpetual inconvenience because Dad would take me to the station every day (I was 13 years old) to do odd jobs around the station, which was A BLAST!! My job was to pull news bulletins off the AP news wires, write down the network video-feed stories and times and subjects, run around with news crews helping to white balance cameras, get stuff, hold cords, read maps, and etc.
When Kerry Max Cook went on trial for a heinous murder in 1978*, my job was to sit in the courtroom and, when the jury broke for lunch, run to the window and point to which stairway the jurors were taking to leave the courthouse, which allowed the cameraman to get pictures of the jurors leaving for the newscast. The trial was closed to members of the media, but I was a 13 year old kid, but I was allowed to sit in. Deputies brought me candy bars. It was a different time.
Well, that was an EXTREMELY sordid trial. It made national news. My mother saw me in a Dallas TV station's coverage, standing with the KLTV news crew at the courthouse, and she hit the roof!
I was on the bus back to Fort Worth the next day :(
Eventually I was allowed to go back to the station, but my days with the "hard news" team were over. So I hung around with the sports guys and the weather team mostly. I did get to go on some hard news stories, but nothing "inappropriate."
*In 2016 Mr. Cook has been exonerated, and I personally believe he was always innocent: See: (
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