WACX (channel 55) is a
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...
licensed to
Leesburg, Florida
Leesburg is a city in central Florida. The population was 20,117 at the 2010 census. As of 2019, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau was 23,671.
Leesburg is in Lake County, between Lake Harris and Lake Griffin, at the head of the ...
, United States, serving the
Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...
area. Locally owned by Associated Christian Television System, Inc., the station maintains studios on Central Parkway in
Altamonte Springs
Altamonte Springs is a suburban city in central Florida in Seminole County, Florida, United States, which had a population of 46,231 at the 2020 United States Census. The city is in the northern suburbs of the Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford Metro ...
, and its transmitter is located near
Bithlo, Florida
Bithlo is a census-designated place and an unincorporated community in Orange County, Florida, United States. The population was 8,268 at the 2010 census, up from 4,626 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee Metropolitan Sta ...
.
WACX operates on a
commercial
Commercial may refer to:
* a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television)
** Radio advertisement
** Television advertisement
* (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...
license
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
, even though it, like most religious stations, is supported through donations from viewers. Its schedule consists primarily of national and local religious programming.
The station's owner, Associated Christian Television System, Inc. is not the same entity as either American Christian Television Services, owner of
WLMA in
Lima, Ohio
Lima ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in northwest Ohio along Interstate 75 in Ohio, Interstate 75 approximately north of Dayton, Ohio, Dayton, southwest of Toledo, Ohio, T ...
, or the defunct
cable
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
network the
American Christian Television System
The American Christian Television System (ACTS) was an American religious television network that was founded by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Plans for the network involved a distribution reach through a combination of low-power and fu ...
.
History
WACX first signed on the air on March 6, 1982 as WIYE, operating on
analog
Analog or analogue may refer to:
Computing and electronics
* Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable
** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals
*** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...
channel 55. However, it has roots in a local Christian cable station begun by Claud and Freeda Bowers in 1977.
Channel 55's signal originally didn't make it too far out of
Lake County. However, the station had grown enough that by 1987 it was able to move to a new transmitter capable of 5 million
watt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...
s of power, boosting its coverage area to the entire
Central Florida
Central Florida is a region of the U.S. state of Florida. Different sources give different definitions for the region, but as its name implies it is usually said to comprise the central part of the state, including the Tampa Bay area and the Gr ...
area. It became WACX in 1988, and began branding itself as "SuperChannel 55" because at the time it was the only station airing at the maximum power allowed for a UHF station. (The WIYE calls now reside at
a low-powered CBS affiliate in
Parkersburg, West Virginia
Parkersburg is a city in and the county seat of Wood County, West Virginia, Wood County, West Virginia. Located at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Little Kanawha River, Little Kanawha rivers, it is the state's fourth-largest city and ...
.)
From the 1990s through September 2006, WACX was affiliated with
TBN, regularly airing select programs from the network; this affiliation ceased after TBN acquired
its own station in the market. Since then, the station has regularly featured programming from
The Inspiration Network
INSP (formerly The Inspiration Network; the initialism is sounded out letter-by-letter) is an American digital cable television network that features primarily westerns (both shows and movies) and is headquartered in Indian Land, South Carolina - ...
(INSP) and periodically from
God TV
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
.
At one point, WACX controlled the SuperChannel TBN channel on the
Sky Angel
Sky Angel was a U.S. operator of Christian television networks; it operated three channels, Angel One, Angel Two, and KTV, all of which were exclusive to Dish Network. The company's corporate headquarters were located in Naples, Florida. The com ...
religious
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...
service, but this was replaced with the national TBN service in 2006.
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's digital signal is
multiplexed
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...
:
Analog-to-digital conversion
WACX shut down its analog signal, over
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
channel 55, in March 2006. The station's digital signal continued to be broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 40. Through the use of
PSIP
The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the A ...
, digital television receivers display the station's
virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...
as its former UHF analog channel 55, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.
Translator
WACX presently operates a
digital
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Technology and computing Hardware
*Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals
**Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...
translator station
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...
which rebroadcasts its signal into the
Gainesville–
Ocala
Ocala ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Marion County within the northern region of Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city's population was 63,591, making it the 54th most populated city in Florida.
Home to ...
area. In addition, programming from WACX's main channel is carried on a
digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...
of
WJGV-CD
WJGV-CD, virtual channel 48 (ultra high frequency, UHF digital terrestrial television, digital channel 25), is a low-power broadcasting#Television, low-powered, Class A television service, Class A Religious broadcasting, religious Independent st ...
(channel 48) in
Palatka.
Former translators
Previously, WACX operated a network of analog
translators
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...
which rebroadcast its signal into other parts of
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
:
Majesty Building
In 2001, Claud Bowers, the general manager of WACX, began construction of the Majesty Building, an 18-story office building in Altamonte Springs. However, no work was done on the building, which has been dubbed "The
I-4 Eyesore" by many locals in the area, for over a decade.
Construction largely resumed in 2018.
References
External links
*
WACX TV Lineup and Demographic Data
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wacx
Television channels and stations established in 1982
ACX
1982 establishments in Florida
ACX