In a suburb to the northeast of Evansville, Ind., a major growth effort is taking shape.
This growth comes in the form of a manufacturing facility in the town of Chandler that will see the increased production of antennas and installation crews.
Electronics Research Inc., commonly known as ERI, is on schedule with a massive growth project that will see its antenna manufacturing capacity expand by 800% by the end of 2016.
In preparation for the new output, ERI is adding personnel to its engineering, manufacturing, and installations staff. This is being done to ensure that the company is ready to provide the equipment and services necessary for the TV channel spectrum repack, which will follow the completion of the FCC’s Incentive Auction currently in the second stage of the Reverse Auction.
ERI will begin production of antennas and make installation crews available as soon as the FCC issues new channel assignments to broadcasters either being relocated within the UHF television band or relocating from UHF Channels to VHF Channels. This will accelerate the process of clearing the 600 MHz frequency band allowing new wireless broadband services to be deployed in the band, within the 39 month repacking timeline outlined by the FCC.
The Indiana facility expansion also gives ERI the capacity to address the needs of FM radio stations whose on-air operations may be impacted by the tower work necessary to implement channel changes at tower sites where TV and FM broadcast facilities are co-located.
ERI has served the broadcast industry since the 1940
