Shinall Mountain is a peak in

Pulaski County, Arkansas Pulaski County is a county in the U.S. state of Arkansas. With a population of 399,125 as of the 2020 United States census, it is the most populous county in Arkansas. The county is included in the Little Rock– North Little Rock–Conway m ...

, located in the foothills of the

Ouachita Mountains The Ouachita Mountains (), simply referred to as the Ouachitas, are a mountain range in western Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. They are formed by a thick succession of highly deformed Paleozoic strata constituting the Ouachita Fold and Thru ...

on the western edge of

Little Rock Little Rock is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Arkansas, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The city's population was 202,591 as of the 2020 census. The six-county Central Arkan ...

, the capital and most populous city of

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

. At an elevation of

above mean sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

, it is the highest natural point in Pulaski County. Shinall Mountain is made of

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...

rocks, and plant fossils can sometimes be found in the blue-hued black shales comprising the sides of its bluff.

Etymology

"Shinall" is a corruption of the French name "Chenault", the surname of a family (consisting of brothers Elijah Nelson Chenault and Benjamin Franklin Chenault, and their respective families) that settled near the base of Shinall Mountain before the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. Another derivation of the surname, "Chenal", is used for two related locations in western Pulaski County: Chenal Valley, a upscale planned community in west Little Rock—which is adjacent to Shinall Mountain, and Chenal Parkway, a mostly divided four-lane thoroughfare (that actually scales Shinall Mountain) connecting Highways 10 and

300 __NOTOC__ Year 300 ( CCC) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantius and Valerius (or, less frequently, year 1053 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 300 ...

to Little Rock's Financial Centre District. The Deltic Timber Corporation, who develops and manages Chenal Valley, chose the name as a

foreign branding In advertising and marketing, foreign branding is the use of foreign or foreign-sounding brand names for companies, goods, and services to imply they are of foreign origin, generally to make them appear to come from a place that seems attractively ...

strategy. Because of the spelling and identical pronunciation, "Shinall" is often misspelled "Chenal" when referring to the peak.

Geography

Shinall Mountain is located approximately south of Pinnacle Mountain. Because Pinnacle Mountain is steeper, it appears higher than Shinall Mountain, despite it actually being 55 feet lower (at an elevation of ). According to the

Geographic Names Information System The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and location information about more than two million physical and cultural features, encompassing the United States and its territories; the Compact of Free Association, asso ...

(GNIS), Shinall Mountain is a

summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for ...

Broadcast stations transmitting from Shinall Mountain

The peak of Shinall Mountain serves an

antenna farm An antenna farm, satellite dish farm or dish farm is an area dedicated to television or radio telecommunications transmitting or receiving antenna equipment, such as C band (IEEE), C, Ku band, Ku or Ka band, Ka Band (radio), band satellite dish ...

for broadcasters in the Little Rock– Pine Bluff

Designated Market Area A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...

(DMA), and is dotted by a number of communications towers housing the transmitter facilities of most of the area's television and FM radio stations as well as

cellular telephone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

carriers,

emergency response Emergency services and rescue services are organizations that ensure public safety, security, and health by addressing and resolving different emergencies. Some of these agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies, while oth ...

weather radio A weather radio is a specialized radio receiver that is designed to receive a public broadcast service, typically from government-owned radio stations, dedicated to broadcasting weather forecasts and reports on a continual basis, with the routine w ...

and

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency radio spectrum, spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emer ...

services, which are easily identifiable due to the navigational lights adorning the towers that can be seen for miles. The height of the mountain made it very attractive for broadcasters to maintain transmitter facilities, as the hilly terrain of

Central Arkansas Central Arkansas, also known as the Little Rock metro, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the most populous metro area in the U.S. state ...

makes it difficult for communications signals to transmit at lower elevations without impairment. The first television antenna on Shinall Mountain was erected in 1955 to house the transmitters of

KARK-TV KARK-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KARZ-TV (channel 42); Nexstar also provides certain services to Fox af ...

(channel 4) and

KTHV KTHV (channel 11) is a television station in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with CBS. The station is owned by Tegna Inc. and maintains studios on South Izard Street in downtown Little Rock and a transmitter atop Shinall Mountai ...

(channel 11). The first FM station to transmit from Shinall Mountain was KARK-FM (103.7 FM, now KABZ), which began broadcasting there in 1967. The tallest of the towers standing on the peak is the

guyed mast A guyed mast is a tall thin vertical structure that depends on guy lines (diagonal tensioned cables attached to the ground or a base) for stability. The mast itself has the compressive strength to support its own weight, but does not have the ...

built in 1983 for

Fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

affiliate

KLRT-TV KLRT-TV (channel 16) is a television station in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting alongside ''de facto'' CW owned-and-operated station KASN (channel 38); Mission maint ...

(channel 16), now owned by

Mission Broadcasting Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 29 full-power television stations in 26 markets in the United States. The group's chair is Nancie Smith, the widow of David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1996 and died in 2 ...

, which stands at .

Television

The following television stations transmit from Shinall Mountain: Other stations in the Little Rock–Pine Bluff DMA not listed in the above table transmit from two other locations in Central Arkansas (listed by

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered as digits on a receiver's ...

followed by physical channel): KASN (virtual channel 38, digital channel 34; CW) and

Arkansas PBS Arkansas PBS (sometimes shortened to AR PBS) is a state network of PBS member television stations serving the U.S. state of Arkansas. It is operated by the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, a statutory non-cabinet agency of the Arkan ...

flagship station KETS (virtual channel 2, digital channel 7;

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

) both transmit from the Redfield Tower, located west-southwest of Redfield in

Grant County Grant County may refer to: Places ;Australia * County of Grant, Victoria ;United States * Grant County, Arkansas * Grant County, Indiana * Grant County, Kansas *Grant County, Kentucky Grant County is a county located in the northern pa ...

; Victory Television Network flagship KVTN-DT (virtual channel 25, digital channel 18; religious independent) transmits from a tower located due west of

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in Lonoke County. Due to that station originally being licensed to Pine Bluff (until 1958) and since-repealed FCC regulations requiring a transmitter to be located within from a station's city of license, KATV maintained transmitters based in Jefferson County from its 1954 sign-on until 2008, transmitting for most of that timeframe from a

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

west-southwest of Redfield (near the present day KASN/KETS tower); the analog transmitter of KETS was also housed on that tower. After the Redfield tower collapsed during

guy wire A guy-wire, guy-line, guy-rope, down guy, or stay, also called simply a guy, is a tensioned cable designed to add stability to a freestanding structure. They are used commonly for ship masts, radio masts, wind turbines, utility poles, and ten ...

repair work on January 22, 2008, KATV set up a temporary analog transmitter at Shinall Mountain on a backup analog transmitter belonging to KTHV; it later received permission from the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(FCC) to permanently relocate its analog and digital transmitters to that tower.

Radio

The following radio stations transmit from Shinall Mountain: In addition to commercial and non-commercial radio stations, the peak also houses the main office and three repeater transmitters (transmitting at 146.940, 147.300 and 444.200 MHz) belonging to Central Arkansas Radio Emergency Net (CAREN), an emergency communications amateur radio service that collaborates with the emergency management agencies of Little Rock,

North Little Rock North Little Rock (often abbreviated "NLR") is a city in Pulaski County, Arkansas, United States. Located on the north side of the Arkansas River, it is the twin city of Little Rock. In the late nineteenth century, it was annexed by Little Ro ...

and Pulaski County and other emergency relief entities in Central Arkansas.

References