 In 1977, construction work began on a satellite dish in a vacant pool south of the Bear Down Gymnasium, allowing the station to receive PBS programming via satellite, which it ably did by the mid-1980s.Like the other stations in the Mount Bigelow tower farm, KUAT-TV is barely viewable in much of northwest Tucson and areas west of Mount Lemmon (even though its coverage area should theoretically include most of southern Arizona).The Santa Catalina Mountains abruptly end with a steep drop-off in Oro Valley, a Tucson suburb, and communities near the mountain are shielded by terrain from the signal.