WTLJ

WTLJ (channel 54) is a religious television station licensed to Muskegon, Michigan, United States, serving West Michigan as an owned-and-operated station of Tri-State Christian Television (TCT). The station's transmitter is located in Allendale Charter Township in Ottawa County, just southwest of Grand Valley State University. Its signal is relayed on translator station WJGP-LD (channel 25; originally W24BO channel 24) in Kalamazoo.

WTLJ

Muskegon–Grand Rapids, Michigan United States
City	Muskegon, Michigan
Channels	Digital: 24 (UHF) Virtual: 54
Branding	TCT 54
Programming
Affiliations	54.1: TCT for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Tri-State Christian Television (Radiant Life Ministries, Inc.)
History
First air date	November 1986 (1986-11)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 54 (UHF, 1986–2009)
Call sign meaning	Witnessing the Love of Jesus -or- We Trust and Love Jesus
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	67781
ERP	310 kW
HAAT	283 m (928 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	42°57′25″N 85°54′7″W
Translator(s)	WJGP-LD 25 Kalamazoo
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.tct.tv

Until June 2018, the station aired its own locally produced programs, Ask the Pastor and Down Home, from a studio adjacent to its transmitter. This ended with the elimination of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s Main Studio Rule earlier in the year and a decision by TCT's operators to consolidate all programming operations at its headquarters in Marion, Illinois.

History

The UHF channel 54 allocation in Michigan was originally assigned to Lansing. It was occupied by DuMont affiliate WILS, which later became WTOM-TV (call letters now used on channel 4 in Cheboygan), and was on the air from 1953 to 1956. The channel 54 allocation was then reassigned to Muskegon. Full-power station WMKG-TV broadcast in the late 1960s from the Occidental Hotel in downtown Muskegon. That station, which operated as an independent station and relied heavily on live, local programming, had left the air by the mid-1970s.

In the early-1980s, WTLJ was originally assigned the call letters WMKT with the intention of focusing on the Muskegon and Holland areas. That station was never built (Muskegon has its own station, WMKG-CD, which fulfills this purpose).

In November 1986, Springfield, Ohio–based Miami Valley Christian Television launched WTLJ, as a Christian-oriented independent station. The station would eventually be sold to its present owners, Tri-State Christian Television. The history of its Kalamazoo repeater, WJGP-LD, is unknown, other than the fact that its application to move its signal from UHF channel 24 to channel 26 was approved in December 1998; the channel switch occurred in January 2002 to facilitate WTLJ's eventual digital channel 24.

The station was receivable in analog on the western shore of Lake Michigan in the Wisconsin cities of Sheboygan and Milwaukee because of channel 54's transmitter being close to the Lake Michigan shore, although TCT does not explicitly market to those cities or have any cable coverage. With the termination on March 4, 2009, of the analog channel 24 signal of Milwaukee's WCGV, the station's digital signal is also easily picked up in Wisconsin.

WTLJ is carried on AcenTek systems serving Buckley, Copemish, Hoxeyville, Mesick, Old Mission, South Boardman, and Thompsonville (all located in the Traverse City market).

WTLJ formerly collaborated with the Ottawa County Department of Corrections to allow probationers to operate the station to receive community service credits and complete their sentences.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WTLJ

Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
54.1	1080i	16:9	WTLJ HD	TCT
54.2	480i		SBN	SBN
54.3			HSTV	Healing Streams TV
54.4			Story	Story Television
54.5			Movies	Movies!
54.6			ShopLC	Shop LC
54.7		4:3	INFO CH	Infomercials

Translator

City of license	Callsign	Channel	ERP	HAAT	Facility ID	Transmitter coordinates
Kalamazoo	WJGP-LD	25	15 kW	136 m (446 ft)	67780	42°07′43.8″N 85°20′22.1″W

Analog-to-digital conversion

WTLJ shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 54, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 24, using virtual channel 54.

External links

• TCT Network