Technical Profile: WHBR-DT

TV Technical Profile: WHBR

Channel:: 34
Programming:: 33.1 - CTN Gulf Coast; 33.2 - CTN International
33.3 - CTN Lifestyle
33.4 - CTN (National Feed?)
33.5 - Biz TV
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] Between JA Racine Road and CR-64 in Baldwin County, south of I-10. Co-located with WEAR-DT, WFGX-DT; FM stations WKSJ, WJTQ, WDLT and WBLX.
Power (ERP):: 1 MW
Height Above Average Terrain (HAAT):: 1,362 feet
Antenna:: Directional
Other Information:: 41 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; [FCC]
[FCCdata]
[RabbitEars]; [Wikipedia]
[Facebook]
History:: WHBR was originally intended to be a commercial independent station. The CP was held by Harbor Broadcasting Company (hence the calls). They chickened out and sold off to the Christian Television Network of Clearwater, Florida. The station came on the air in January 1986, transmitting from a a side mounted antenna on the WPMI TV tower. It was somewhat unusual that WHBR and WMPV both came on the air within months of each other — both carrying 100% religious programming.

The 1800 foot tower that held WPMI-TV, WHBR-TV, WJLQ-FM, WKSJ-FM, WBLX-FM and WYOK-FM fell in 2004 during Hurricane Ivan. The stations have since relocated to alternate tower facilities.

The station launched a digital transmission in 2004, and signed off their analog broadcast in 2005, earlier than the mandated cutoff date.

The station launched CTN International on the —.2 subchannel in March 2011. Pensacola's infomercial network, BlabTV, showed up on the —.3 subchannel in May 2011. It was later discovered to a direct relay of WPAN-DT, meant to feed WFBD-DT in Wing, Alabama. Eventually the feed went dark, as it was being encrypted only for WFBD's use. It would show up in the clear and go encrypted a few more times during its tenure on the station.

The station went completely dark around 11 November 2011 due to a lightning strike.

Once an alternate method of feeding BlabTV to WFBD became available, the channel was removed from WHBR's lineup in 2012. Later that same year, CTN Lifestyle launched on the —.2 subchannel. They later also added CTN International on the —.3 subchannel.

The station appears to have added a direct feed of the main CTN network channel to the —.4 subchannel in August 2021. The version on the main channel is sometimes preempted for local religious programming.

In January 2024 it was observed that the station had added Biz TV to the —.5 subchannel.