WCES-TV


WCES-TV, virtual channel 20, is a Public Broadcasting Service member television station serving Augusta, Georgia, United States that is licensed to Wrens. Owned by the Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission, it is a sister station to National Public Radio member WACG-FM. WCES-TV's transmitter is located northeast of Wrens in unincorporated Jefferson County. The station is operated as part of the statewide Georgia Public Broadcasting television network.
WCES-TV serves Augusta, surrounding east-central Georgia, west-central South Carolina, and the Savannah River valley.

History

WCES-TV's first broadcast was on September 12, 1966, on the National Educational Television network as the sixth educational station in Georgia and the fifth station in what was then known as Georgia Educational Television. On October 5, 1970, WCES-TV and all nine stations in what was by then Georgia Public Television became a part of the new PBS network. Its digital television signal on channel 2 started in 2003.
The station chose to keep its digital signal on channel 2 in the first-round digital channel election, but requested channel 6 in the third round. This is because low VHF has a lot of RF noise, which is worse on the lowest channels.
The radio tower was built in 1966.

Digital programming

Translators

Both translators are, or were, located near the state's border with South Carolina, in areas where coverage from a full-powered GPB transmitter is insufficient. This is due to the distance from the main transmitters and the hilly terrain in northeast Georgia.
W22AC was temporarily off-air for two months in early 2008, when GPB broadcast engineers had to borrow its TV transmitter to get WACS-TV back on-air. That station was destroyed by a tornado in March 2007, and had to begin broadcasting again within a year, or its license would have been automatically canceled by law.