WKAS


WKAS, virtual channel 25, is a Public Broadcasting Service member television station licensed to Ashland, Kentucky, United States. Owned by the Kentucky Authority for Educational Television, the station is operated as part of the statewide Kentucky Educational Television network. WKAS' transmitter is located on DeBord Hill in Ashland.

History

The station began its first broadcast on September 23, 1968, at 3 p.m. Eastern Time as a member of the ten charter stations of the KET network. All of the network's satellites were strategically located to serve as much of the state as possible.

Digital television

The station's digital television companion signal, WKAS-DT, along with the digital companions of thirteen other KET stations signed on the air in May 2002.

Analog-to-digital conversion

On April 16, 2009, WKAS shut down its analog signal over UHF channel 25 as part of the mandatory analog-to-digital television transition of 2009. The deadline was moved from February 17 to June 12 of that year as part of the DTV Delay Act, but all KET stations completed the transition on April 16. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 26. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 25.

Spectrum incentive auction results

WKAS currently holds a construction permit to reallocate its digital signal onto UHF channel 36 as part of the network's involvement in the FCC's spectrum auction. The station must relocate its digital signal to their new elected allocation due to a channel repack. The transition, in this case, was completed on the morning of October 18, 2019.
Furthermore, another result of the spectrum auction is that WKAS, along with West Virginia Public Broadcasting television flagship WVPB-TV, became the sole PBS stations in the Huntington–Charleston market to remain. Ohio State University-owned WOSU-TV in Columbus, Ohio elected to sign off their Portsmouth-based satellite station WPBO-TV due to enough duplication of PBS signals in the West Virginia–Ohio–Kentucky tri-state area.

Availability

Over-the-air

The WKAS digital signal reaches Boyd, Lawrence, Carter, Greenup and Elliott counties in northeastern Kentucky, as well as the southernmost counties of Ohio, and Cabell, Wayne and northwestern Lincoln counties of West Virginia. Major cities included in this described area include Ashland, Kentucky; Huntington, West Virginia; and Portsmouth, Ohio.
WKAS' signal covers some of the same areas as two other KET stations, WKPI-TV in Pikeville to the south, and WKMR in Morehead to the west. WKAS also takes in some of the coverage area of WKMR's low-powered translator W28DD-D in Louisa. Signal coverage of all three stations in the general area, however, is subject to change due to the 2016 FCC Spectrum incentive auction.

Cable availability

KET’s statewide cable coverage includes several locally-owned cable systems in northeastern Kentucky, and the Charter Spectrum systems in the Ashland and Ironton, Ohio areas. Both WKAS and WVPB are uplinked to satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network in the entire Charleston–Huntington market, thus making KET available in the immediate Charleston area and much of the western two-thirds of West Virginia via satellite television.