applications to build four satellite stations and one translator to expand KETS's educational programming to approximately three-quarters of the state, to serve Arkadelphia on VHF channel 9 (filed on July 15, 1974, and granted on February 28, 1975), Fayetteville on VHF channel 13 (filed on March 8, 1974, and granted on July 10, 1975), Jonesboro on UHF channel 19 (granted on July 8, 1974), and Mountain View on VHF channel 6 (re-filed on April 22, 1977, and granted on March 15, 1979). In 1973, the Arkansas General Assembly approved the plan and associated funding to expand educational television programming to the entire state through KETS. The four satellites that joined KETS to form the Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN) were launched between 1976 and 1980; the three initial repeaters among KETS's four original satellite stations launched over the span of five months starting in the Fall of 1976. KETG (channel 9) in Arkadelphia was the first to sign on the air on October 29, 1976, providing public television service to southwestern Arkansas from a transmitter near Gurdon; less than two months later, on December 9, KAFT (channel 13) in Fayetteville—transmitting from atop Sunset Mountain (near Winslow)—debuted as the network's third station, servicing most of Northwest Arkansas including nearby Fort Smith. (Around that time, the AETC also launched a low-power translator station, K13MV, in Eudora, servicing portions of far southeastern Arkansas.) The AETC launched its fourth full-power station on January 13, 1977, when KTEJ (channel 19) in Jonesboro signed on from a transmitter in Bono, extending its reach into portions of northeastern Arkansas as well as adjacent border areas of western Tennessee and the Missouri Bootheel. By 1979, AETN expanded its broadcast schedule to offer additional programming for general audiences during the evenings and on weekends, broadcasting daily from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. The last of the original satellites to debut was KEMV (channel 6) in Mountain View, which signed on June 21, 1980, to provide service to north-central Arkansas as well as parts of extreme south-central Missouri from a transmitter located just east of Fox. Raymond Ho replaced the retiring Reaves as executive director in June 1981; his tenure saw AETN increase production of local programming, and Ho and the network become embroiled in political conflicts with state legislators. In addition to lobbying state officials for additional legislative funding, Ho significantly expanded fundraising for the network through public and