Technical Profile: WDVZ-CD

TV Technical Profile: WDVZ-CD

Channel:: 3
Programming:: 3.1 - COZI TV
3.2 - This TV
3.3 - color bars
3.4 - Weather Radar / Alabama Public Radio audio
Transmitter Location:: [map] [street view] [bird's eye] On the old WDBB-TV tower on Jug Factory Road, behind Walmart.
Power (ERP):: 2.95 kW
Height Above Average Terrain (HAAT):: 584 feet
Antenna:: Directional
Other Information:: [FCC]
[FCCdata]
[RabbitEars.info]; [Wikipedia]

[Image] Banner with station identification, from January 2023.

Owned by East Coast Christian TV Broadcasting, LLC
// WVUA-CD Tuscaloosa, AL
// WVUA-DT Tuscaloosa, AL
// WJMY-CD Demopolis, AL
History:: An application for a new station on channel 3, licensed to Greensboro, was initially granted on 17 October 1990, with W03BF as the call sign. The licensee's name was Dennis Adams. The license to cover was filed in May 1992 and the station began broadcasting with unknown programming from a site in the Greensboro area. In February 2000 the station was sold to TTI, Inc., the company behind radio station WJRD. They'd put on their own TV station, WJRD-LP, and had acquired Demopolis-licensed WJMY-LP in 1998. It's unknown if WJRD's programming began to be seen on this station or not. TTI had the transmitter site moved to a tower site off AL-69 in the Havana community in 2001. They moved it again, this time to the old WDBB-TV tower off Jug Factory road in Tuscaloosa, where sister station (now WVUA) was located. It's still unknown if this was a total simulcast or not at this time of WVUA. In 2009 the station was given permission to flash-cut to digital. The station did so in April 2015, from the "Tuscaloosa tall tower" site in northern Tuscaloosa County, site of WDBB's current transmitter site. That did not last long, presumably due to poor VHF-low digital coverage, and the station was moved back to the Jug Factory Road site two months later.

Due to a contract requirement with the owners of the This TV network, the station added a full time feed of the network to the —.3 subchannel in late November 2019. It bumped the APR audio and weather radar feed to the —.4 subchannel. The station announced it would be adding COZI TV to the —.1 subchannel on 28 September 2020.

On 15 January 2021, "The Light" subchannel was discontinued by Byron Allen's Entertainment studios and replaced with the African-American-centric "The Grio.TV". In early September 2021, the lineup was changed to move This TV to the —.2 subchannel, eliminating The Grio.TV. The —.3 subchannel was replaced with Local Now.

In April 2022, the Local Now subchannel disappeared, replaced by color bars and a tone, with "U of Alabama" in text on screen.

In December 2022, the station filed for a minor technical correction of station data; the antenna height was adjusted upwards slightly on this site as a result. A license to cover for that was filed the same month.

The station was sold by TTI, Inc. in January 2023 to East Coast Christian TV Broadcasting for $180,000. As of purchase time, East Coast Christian TV owns two other low power digital stations in Florida.