Technical Profile: WVUA-DT

TV Technical Profile: WVUA

Channel:: 6
Programming:: 23.1 - COZI TV
23.2 - —
23.3 - —
23.4 - Weather Radar / Alabama Public Radio audio
Transmitter Location:: [map] Atop Red Mountain, Birmingham, on the old WIAT-TV tower.
Power (ERP):: 26 kW
Height Above Average Terrain (HAAT):: 1,296 feet
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Other Information:: 28 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; [FCC]
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[Image] Banner with station identification, from January 2023.

// WVUA-CD Tuscaloosa, AL
// WJMY-CD Demopolis, AL
// WDVZ-CD Greensboro, AL
History:: This station was originally supposed to be a simulcast of WABM-TV out of Birmingham, carrying UPN programming. The calls were WBJH, changed to WLDM a month later; it may have been on the air with a Shop-at-Home programming feed at one point. The University of Alabama, which from 2002 has owned WVUA-CD, a low power VHF station in Tuscaloosa, acquired this channel through a donation. In March 2005, the calls changed to WUOA, which were the original calls of Alabama Public Radio station WUAL, also owned by the University. After acquisition, the station has simulcast WVUA-CD programming, which features Tuscaloosa's only local newscasts on television. Early on, the station carried the America One network, but that was dropped for This TV in 2008.; .; On the analog shutdown date of June 12^th, this station made the flash-cut switch from their analog channel 23 to digital 6 from atop Red Mountain. The station picked up the "University wide" WVUA-DT calls in May 2015. The parent station to this repeater is WVUA-CD; there's also a WVUA-FM radio station run by the students at the University. In the late spring of 2017 the station picked up the fledgling Light TV network on the -.2 subchannel. The -.3 subchannel carries weather radar along with WUAL-FM's public radio audio format. There had also been a -.4 subchannel with color bars and the eXponential brand music format, but it appears it was dropped in the fall of 2017.

One of the benefits of this station taking WBRC's old VHF channel 6 allocation atop Red Mountain was that they could use that station's old analog VHF antenna. Today, the station uses a re-purposed 16-bay ERI FM antenna that's located near the top of the old WIAT-TV tower.

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. It was later replaced with a static blurred image, but as of July 2022 it is still not showing any content.

In June 2023 it was discovered that the —.3 subchannel was showing various live cameras from around the University of Alabama campus, paired with Alabama Public Radio audio. By August it was gone and the subchannel was removed from the lineup completely.

The station was reported off the air in mid-September 2024 when a transmission line failed. A resumption of operations notice was filled with the FCC in mid-November 2024. It was observed tha This TV was not on when the station came back on the air. It's unclear if this is a permanent change or not.