Sinclair Broadcast Group is not just focusing on buying up TV stations. The station group has announced the purchased of Dielectric, the largest maker of TV, radio and wireless transmission towers in the US, from SPX Corporation.
“Dielectric has supplied more than two-thirds of the TV industry’s high power antennas and its name is synonymous with expert engineering and quality products,” Sinclair President and CEO David Smith said in a statement. “Further, if and when a spectrum repack occurs, Dielectric will be there to support that effort.”
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TVTechnology said according to Cavell, Mertz and Associates, 124 of Sinclair’s 140 stations use Dielectric Antennas. Gary Cavell of Cavell Mertz also said the upcoming repack would be impossible to accomplish in a three year period without Dielectric.
[TVNewsCheck]“There’s not an inventory just lying there,” Cavell said in April. “Even if Dielectric were still in business, you would still have to ramp up production, train people, import the brass, the copper, the materials…. and not that many antenna crews are certified to work more than 500 feet above the ground. Those guys have scattered.”