Any Religious VHF TV Stations?

[ssnake]

Re: About Low-V DTV channels

> From what I have read, low-V channels are much less than
> ideal for DTV operation.

This might be a special exception though - in general, there is less interference in interior Alaska. Certainly there are the same household gadgets and electronic devices though.

KJNP is probably looking to save on their power bill. Channels 7, 9, 11, and 13 in Fairbanks have all elected to stay on their high-VHF channels, but channel 2 is moving to UHF.

Personally I'd junk all of the VHF band for DTV. Fringe antennas for VHF are too unwieldy, and the picture is far more likely in my experience to pixelate due to sporadic interference.

 

[Markd]

Catholic Owned stations but not religious

> > ...to this day except for Puerto Rico
> > the only Catholic full-power TV station I know of is KNXT
> in
> > the Fresno area.

Actually Roman catholic entities have owned VHF and UHF commercial stations in the past. The few I know of.

1. 4 WWL TV New Orleans a CBS Affiliate - Owned by Lyola University until the late 1980's. Originally ran alot of catholic programming back in the old days but by the 60's WWL TV was a typical CBS affiliate and had about an hour a day of catholic programming weekdays and Sundays a couple hours along with a couple hours on Sunday morning of Protestant shows. WWL TV by the late 70's had the least amount of religious shows in New Orleans except for 6 WDSU in fact.

WWL TV was sold to a board of rank and file employees around 1989 or 1990. they would sell it to Belo in the mid 90's

2. 20 WTXX Hartford - Began as a commercial NBC affiliate in the 50's and locally owned as WATR. Sold to Renaissance in 1982 and became a conventional general entertainment independent station. Sold again in 1993 at this time to a Catholic Group called Counterpoint.

Under its Catholic owners WTXX added an hour a day of Catholic programs during the week and two hours on Sundays. They had Home Shopping 15 hours day, Cartoons 6 hours a day, and some first run low rate syndicated shows 3 hours a day. It became a UPN affiliate in 1995. In 1996 it dropped most of HSN programming and returned to a conventional independent schedule with sitcoms, movies, and better syndicated shows as well as cartoons. They continued the hour a day of catholic shows and Sunday catholic shows as well running Mass 7 days a week at 10 AM. In 2000 Tribune would buy WTXX and switch them to WB programming. Still though Mass runs at 10 AM 7 days a week though they are no longer Catholic owned

3 KTTU 18 Tucson - Catholic Diocese of Tucson signed this station on january 1985 the same week as Channel 40 signed on. Both these stations joined an ABC, NBC, CBS, and independent station taking Tucson from a one to three independent station town.

Channel 18 ran a conventional general entertainment format with only 30 minutes of Catholic or religious shows per day and Mass only on Sundays. On Sundays they ran about 4 hours a day of catholic programs. The station was at that time known as KDTU. The station ran cartoons, sitcoms, movies, and drama shows. They ran less religion then either Channel 40 or Channel 11 (the long time idependent that would become the Fox station). In 1989 Channel 40 went dark and Channel 18 would be sold to Clear Channel.

Under Clear Channel it would become KTTU, become LMAd by Fox 11 owned by Providence Journal then Belo, became UPN 18 in 1995, sold to Belo in 2000 and then to Raycom in 2002.

 

[KMRichards]

Re: About Low-V DTV channels

> > From what I have read, low-V channels are much less than
> > ideal for DTV operation.
>
> This might be a special exception though - in general, there
> is less interference in interior Alaska. Certainly there
> are the same household gadgets and electronic devices
> though.

But if the FCC says "everyone to channels 7-51" KJNP won't get preferential treatment for being in Alaska.

The problem isn't so much electrical interference as it is the way atmospheric conditions affect the low-V channels.

> KJNP is probably looking to save on their power bill.
> Channels 7, 9, 11, and 13 in Fairbanks have all elected to
> stay on their high-VHF channels, but channel 2 is moving to
> UHF.

The vast majority of DTVs have a lower ERP on their digital channel than they did on analog. In the case of KJNP, they are licensed for 4% of their analog ERP, although they have an application pending to increase it. Even so, they have applied for a lower ERP than their present analog.

> Personally I'd junk all of the VHF band for DTV. Fringe
> antennas for VHF are too unwieldy, and the picture is far
> more likely in my experience to pixelate due to sporadic
> interference.

That is the problem with the low-Vs. Not nearly as bad on high-V channels.

I believe the FCC has determined that they need a minimum of 40-45 channels to properly space out all the DTVs post-transition, and they already have allocated the channels above 51 for wireless phone service and the like, so I think the high-Vs are going to stay for a while.

I'd love to use the space occupied by channels 4 and 5 to expand the FM band, though (that is where FM is located in Japan).<P ID="signature">______________


</P>

 

[dhett]

Interesting history on KTTU...

> Under Clear Channel it would become KTTU, become LMAd by Fox
> 11 owned by Providence Journal then Belo, became UPN 18 in
> 1995, sold to Belo in 2000 and then to Raycom in 2002.
>

...but a minor nit to pick: KTTU is still owned by Belo; Raycom owns KOLD.<P ID="signature">______________
Dave</P>