Press Release from Your Hometown Stations Engineering: Your Hometown Stations has commissioned a new translator in southeast Auglaize County to assist with over the air viewing. The new translator, WAMS, went on the air today, and is licensed to the communities of Minster/New Bremen. The translator’s location is 1 mile east-southeast of Minster, south of SR-119 and County 61.
A translator picks up the host station, (WOHL), repeating the signal in a designated area. The new translator repeats the signal of WOHL in Lima, Ohio, in HD, 720p with surround sound, SAP, and descriptive audio, and second channel. Along with coverage of news and sports, including school closings, WAMS also features regional weather and transmits EAS warnings for Auglaize, Mercer, and Shelby Counties.
According to Chief Engineer, Frederick Vobbe, “To receive the new signal, the viewer points their ‘over the air’ antenna towards the translator, and uses their TV remote control to, ‘scan for new channels’. The newly received signal will show up on the TV set’s channel guide as WOHL-ABC 35.1, and WOHL-CBS 35.2. If you already receive WOHL you can choose the stronger of the two signals to avoid duplication”.
WOHL changed its channel from 35 to 15, in August 2019. The change was mandated by the Federal Communications Commission’s “Incentive Auction for Wireless Spectrum”, legislated by Congress. Over 23 stations in the region had, or will switch their channel assignments by July 3rd, 2020. WAMS-LD was previously WLMO-LP, CBS Channel 38 (analog), in Cridersville, OH. WLMO was displaced from channel 39 by T Mobile with their rollout of 5G service in Allen, Auglaize, Mercer, and Shelby Counties.
If you have questions or antenna guidance, please call Your Hometown Stations, Monday – Friday between 8:30AM and 4:00PM at 419-228-8835, or e-mail tech@wlio.com to contact our engineering department.
Non-engineering comments or questions can also be sent to Kevin Creamer, President & General Manager at kcreamer@wlio.com, or Frederick Vobbe, Chief Engineer at fvobbe@wlio.com.
Your Hometown Stations is a subsidiary of Block Communications Inc, a 116-year-old privately held diversified media holding company. B.C.I. also owns The Toledo Blade, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Blade NewsSlide, Buckeye Broadband, Telesystems, Buckeye Cable Sports Networks, MaxxSouth, LineSystems Inc, Libercus, WLIO (Channel 8 Lima OH), WOHL (Channel 15 Lima OH), translators WPNM (Channel 27 Leipsic OH), and WAMS (Channel 29 Minster/New Bremen, OH), WFND (Channel 19 Findlay OH), WDRB (Channel 32 Louisville KY), WBKI (Channel 16 Salem IN), WAND (Channel 20 Decatur IL), translators W23EQ (Channel 23 Danville, IL), W29ES (Channel 29 Jacksonville, IL), and W33EK (Channel 33 Effingham, IL), and Toledo-Detroit Outdoor Billboard.
