Millennium Transmitter

The Millennium Transmitter is a 720 ft (219.5 m) high communications tower of ABS-CBN located at the ABS-CBN Broadcast Center, Mother Ignacia Street corner Sgt. Esguerra Avenue, Quezon City. It serves as a platform for television transmission antennas for both DWWX-TV and DWAC-TV, the respective flagship stations of ABS-CBN and ABS-CBN Sports and Action. It was also the former transmission tower of radio station DWRR until it was shifted when the Millennium Transmitter was upgraded by the end of 1999.

Millennium Transmitter
The Millennium Transmitter at night. 2012
Alternative namesABS-CBN Tower
General information
TypeCommunications tower
LocationQuezon City, Philippines
Coordinates14°38′25.36″N 121°02′12.08″E
Construction startedMid-1968
CompletedMarch 21, 1969
OwnerABS-CBN
Height
Antenna spire219.5 m (720 ft)

History
Millennium Transmitter (right) before the renovation.

The Millennium Transmitter, also called as the ABS-CBN Tower, was constructed at the corner of Mother Ignacia Street and Sgt. Esguerra Avenue, within the ABS-CBN Broadcasting Centre. Construction began in the third quarter of 1968. On March 21, 1969, the tower became operational, transmitting television and radio for ABS-CBN and also used to beam color broadcasts in Metro Manila, and to nearby provinces. After martial law was declared on September 21, 1972, as ABS-CBN suspended their operations the following day, the facility was taken over by the crony-owned BBC-2 from 1973 to 1979; state-run People's Television's predecessors GTV/MBS-4 also occupied the tower from 1974 to 1992 to beam their programs. When the EDSA Revolution happened, both the tower and Broadcast Plaza were stormed by reformist rebels as escalating battle occurred on February 24, 1986. After the revolution, the tower was returned to ABS-CBN. Since then, the tower became the primary source of transmission for both DWWX-TV and DWRR and later it began transmitting the company's sister UHF station DWAC-TV in 1996.

The newly renovated Millennium Transmitter (left).

Its former height is 650 ft (198.1 m), until the time when ABS-CBN started a major reconstruction and rehabilitation of the whole tower, which includes the changing of its previously used cylinder antennas to even more powerful dipole antennas with reflector, and increase of its height which was finished by the 3rd quarter of 2009.[1]

Features

The Tower

The Millennium Transmitter uses its newly installed dipole antennas with reflector, and UHF panel antennas for wide coverage of Analog (VHF and UHF TV) and Digital (ISDB-T) TV reception in Metro Manila some nearby provinces in both grades A and B, for the broadcasts of DWWX-TV and DWAC-TV respectively. Despite the name, the Millennium Transmitter is not a transmitter of its own, but rather a communications tower with antennas connected to multiple transmitters.

The Transmitter Facility

The transmitter facility houses both DWWX-TV and DWAC-TV that contains sets of transmitter equipment imported by Harris and Jampro of the United States.

See also

References
  1. An “Improvised” TV Antenna of ABS-CBN of 2009 « Albert Cornelio Blog Community PH. Albcorph.wordpress.com (2009-08-24). Retrieved on 2011-10-01.
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