tight that its founding general manager, public television veteran William Pearce, resigned after four months to return to his prior employer, WXXI-TV in Rochester. It lacked a full studio of its own or its own mobile broadcasting equipment, and it spent seven months without a new leader as other public television managers turned down the post. Color telecasts only began with the installation of color video tape machines in December 1972, nearly four years after starting up. The station finally got studio space to use when it moved in to the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) in Westbury in 1974, but that arrangement lasted two years; station operations were moved into a mobile van, which some employees claimed was due to a vote by technicians to unionize. As the station investigated studio space at Stony Brook University, it also received federal approval and matching grants to move its transmitter to Plainview and increase power to cover all of Long Island. 1979 was a year of major change for WLIW. In February, the new Plainview transmitter site and studios, at the highest point on Long Island, was activated, significantly improving reception and extending channel 21's reach and capabilities. However, internal strife dominated the second half of the year. Charles R. Bell, who had been general manager since Pearce's departure, accused some of the station's trustees with interfering in programming decisions to further political ambitions and the goals of a political strategy firm which one of them headed. The trustees responded by voting not to renew Bell's contract. John Wicklein assumed the manager post in February 1980 and sought to give the station an identity independent from that of WNET and additional local programming and support. He was also tasked with erasing a $250,000 deficit from the building programs of the late 1970s that had forced layoffs and program suspensions. When other public television stations in the state visited WLIW, their leaders assessed an additional non-financial problem at the station: an acceptance of living in the shadow of WNET and a "defeatist" attitude. Its ability to attract local support was eclipsed by stations serving far fewer people, such as WCFE-TV in Plattsburgh. Wicklein left after three months and soon was replaced by Arthur Gillick of Syracuse. Gillick was able to steady the station's financial picture and restore the lost local programs as a result, though further local cuts led to the