Shinall Mountain is a peak in

Pulaski County, Arkansas Pulaski County is located in the U.S. state of Arkansas with a population of 399,125, making it the most populous county in Arkansas. The county is included in the Little Rock–North Little Rock– Conway metropolitan area. Its county seat is ...

, located in the foothills of the

Ouachita Mountains The Ouachita Mountains (), simply referred to as the Ouachitas, are a mountain range in western Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. They are formed by a thick succession of highly deformed Paleozoic strata constituting the Ouachita Fold and Thru ...

on the western edge of

Little Rock ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...

, the capital and most populous city of

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

. At an elevation of

above mean sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance ( height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''. Th ...

, it is the highest natural point in Pulaski County. Shinall Mountain is made of

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carboniferou ...

rocks, and plant fossils can sometimes be found in the blue-hued black shales comprising the sides of its bluff.

Etymology

"Shinall" is a corruption of the French name "Chenault", the surname of a family (consisting of brothers Elijah Nelson Chenault and Benjamin Franklin Chenault, and their respective families) that settled near the base of Shinall Mountain before the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

. Another derivation of the surname, "Chenal", is used for two related locations in western Pulaski County: Chenal Valley, a upscale planned community in west Little Rock—which is adjacent to Shinall Mountain, and Chenal Parkway, a mostly divided four-lane thoroughfare (that actually scales Shinall Mountain) connecting Highways 10 and

300 __NOTOC__ Year 300 ( CCC) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantius and Valerius (or, less frequently, year 1053 ''Ab ...

to Little Rock's Financial Centre District. The Deltic Timber Corporation, who develops and manages Chenal Valley, chose the name as a

foreign branding Foreign branding is an advertising and marketing term describing the use of foreign or foreign-sounding brand names for companies, products, and services to imply they are of foreign origin. This can also be used for foreign products if the countr ...

strategy. Because of the spelling and identical pronunciation, "Shinall" is often misspelled "Chenal" when referring to the peak.

Geography

Shinall Mountain is located approximately south of Pinnacle Mountain. Because Pinnacle Mountain is steeper, it appears higher than Shinall Mountain, despite it actually being 55 feet lower (at an elevation of ). According to the

Geographic Names Information System The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories, Antarctica, and the associated states of ...

(GNIS), Shinall Mountain is a

summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for a m ...

Broadcast stations transmitting from Shinall Mountain

The peak of Shinall Mountain serves an antenna farm for broadcasters in the Little Rock– Pine Bluff

Designated Market Area A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...

(DMA), and is dotted by a number of communications towers housing the transmitter facilities of most of the area's television and FM radio stations as well as

cellular telephone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while ...

carriers,

emergency response Emergency services and rescue services are organizations that ensure public safety and health by addressing and resolving different emergencies. Some of these agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies, while others deal wi ...

weather radio A weather radio is a specialized radio receiver that is designed to receive a public broadcast service, typically from government-owned radio stations, dedicated to broadcasting weather forecasts and reports on a continual basis, with the routine ...

and

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency commu ...

services, which are easily identifiable due to the navigational lights adorning the towers that can be seen for miles. The height of the mountain made it very attractive for broadcasters to maintain transmitter facilities, as the hilly terrain of

Central Arkansas Central Arkansas, also known as the Little Rock metro, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the most populous metro area in the U.S. state o ...

makes it difficult for communications signals to transmit at lower elevations without impairment. The first television antenna on Shinall Mountain was erected in 1955 to house the transmitters of

KARK-TV KARK-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KARZ-TV (channel 42); Nexstar also provides certain services to Fox aff ...

(channel 4) and

KTHV KTHV (channel 11) is a television station in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with CBS. The station is owned by Tegna Inc., and maintains studios on South Izard Street in downtown Little Rock and a transmitter atop Shinall Moun ...

(channel 11). The first FM station to transmit from Shinall Mountain was KARK-FM (103.7 FM, now

KABZ KABZ (103.7 MHz) is a commercial FM radio station in Little Rock, Arkansas. The station is owned by Signal Media and the broadcast license is held by Signal Media of Arkansas, Inc. KABZ airs a sports radio format, known as "103.7 The Buzz." The ...

), which began broadcasting there in 1967. The tallest of the towers standing on the peak is the

guyed mast A guyed mast or guyed tower is a tall thin vertical structure that depends on guy lines (diagonal tensioned cables attached to the ground) for stability. The mast itself has the compressive strength to support its own weight, but does not ha ...

built in 1983 for Fox affiliate KLRT-TV (channel 16), now owned by

Mission Broadcasting Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 20 television stations in 17 markets in the United States. The group's Chair is Nancie Smith, the widow of David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1996 and died in 2011. All but ...

, which stands at .

Television

The following television stations transmit from Shinall Mountain: Other stations in the Little Rock–Pine Bluff

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not listed in the above table transmit from two other locations in Central Arkansas (listed by

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 ...

followed by physical channel): KASN (virtual channel 38, digital channel 34; CW) and Arkansas PBS flagship station KETS (virtual channel 2, digital channel 7; PBS) both transmit from the Clear Channel Broadcasting Tower, located west-southwest of Redfield in Jefferson County;

Victory Television Network The Victory Television Network (VTN) is a religious independent television network serving the U.S. state of Arkansas. It serves as the broadcasting arm of the Little Rock–based Agape Church, and is operated by a namesake parent subsidiary tha ...

flagship KVTN-DT (virtual channel 25, digital channel 18; religious independent) transmits from a tower located due west of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

in Lonoke County. Due to that station originally being licensed to Pine Bluff (until 1958) and since-repealed FCC regulations requiring a transmitter to be located within from a station's city of license, KATV maintained transmitters based in Jefferson County from its 1954 sign-on until 2008, transmitting for most of that timeframe from a

tower A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specific ...

west-southwest of Redfield (near the present day KASN/KETS tower); the analog transmitter of KETS was also housed on that tower. After the Redfield tower collapsed during

guy wire A guy-wire, guy-line, guy-rope, or stay, also called simply a guy, is a tensioned cable designed to add stability to a free-standing structure. They are used commonly for ship masts, radio masts, wind turbines, utility poles, and tents. A thi ...

repair work on January 22, 2008, KATV set up a temporary analog transmitter at Shinall Mountain on a backup analog transmitter belonging to KTHV; it later received permission from the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(FCC) to permanently relocate its analog and digital transmitters to that tower.

Radio

The following radio stations transmit from Shinall Mountain: In addition to commercial and non-commercial radio stations, the peak also houses the main office and three repeater transmitters (transmitting at 146.940, 147.300 and 444.200 MHz) belonging to Central Arkansas Radio Emergency Net (CAREN), an emergency communications amateur radio service that collaborates with the emergency management agencies of Little Rock,

North Little Rock North Little Rock is a city in Pulaski County, Arkansas, across the Arkansas from Little Rock in the central part of the state. The population was 64,591 at the 2020 census. In 2019 the estimated population was 65,903, making it the seventh-mo ...

and Pulaski County and other emergency relief entities in Central Arkansas.

References