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CITIES WHERE THE 1ST TV STATION WAS A UHF

gregg75

gregg75

Sounds like this might be an interesting topic, as most large cities started on VHF.

In Columbus, Georgia (where I grew up). WDAK 28 signed on Oct. 6, 1953 as NBC primary
with ABC secondary. Why they got a UHF when surely some VHFs were still available is unclear.

This was the 5th station in Georgia and 2nd outside Atlanta. It was followed a month later
by WRBL 4 CBS/NBC.

In 1956 WDAK became WTVM.

In 1960 WTVM moved to channel 9 and became ABC/NBC. WRBL moved to channel 3 which was vacated by WTVY Dothan (they moved to channel 4). Channel 28 eventually became NET.

this topic is also on the Classic TV board but this is where I meant to put it
 
Evansville, IN had WFIE-14 and WEHT-50 sign on in 1953. WEHT later moved to channel 25. The market's first VHF, WTVW-7 signed on in 1956. Another V signed on in the early 80s with WNIN-9.

Even post-digital, there are two full power Vs in the market: WEHT on RF 7 and WNIN on RF 9.
 
WBRE in Wilkes-Barre, PA was the first station to sign on in that market as a UHF (28) back in 1/1/53.
Followed by WYOU (WGBI/WDAU) (22) on June 7, 1953, WILK-TV (34) September 16, 1953, and WARM-TV (16) January 2, 1954... on 1/1/56, WILK and WARM merged to form WNEP (16.)
 
In Ft. Smith, AR, KFSA-TV (now KFSM) started on channel 22. Another station, can't remember exactly what it's calls were, signed on a year or two later at channel 5. After a few years of competing, KFSA-TV bought channel 5, moved to 5 and shut 22 down.
 
notalkallstatic said:
WBRE in Wilkes-Barre, PA was the first station to sign on in that market as a UHF (28) back in 1/1/53.
Followed by WYOU (WGBI/WDAU) (22) on June 7, 1953, WILK-TV (34) September 16, 1953, and WARM-TV (16) January 2, 1954... on 1/1/56, WILK and WARM merged to form WNEP (16.)
Click to expand...
Interesting. My mom grew up in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area, and her father bought the first TV over in NJ where they got all the NYC VHF channels. When they got it back to their home, it didn't pick up anything, as the TV had no UHF tuner. I don't think UHF tuners were commonly built into TV sets back in the 1950s. Though I do know that on occasion, they could get a very faint signal from WBNG-TV (12) from Binghamton, NY.
 
UHF wasn't required on all TVs until 1964. As for the so-called UHF islands, nearby Springfield, MA was another one of them: NBC 22, ABC 40 and PBS 57. Of course that's not counting them receiving CBS 3 and FOX 61 from Hartford/New Haven. :)
 
I have read old Chicago Tribune newspapers when WCIU signed on as Chicago's first UHF station. And the paper advised if you couldn't find a VHF/UHF set in Chicago to go to stores in South Bend and Peoria, which of course had lots of them as they were "UHF Islands"
 
My original post disappeared. I included both South Bend & Fort Wayne Indiana markets for having the first UHF station go on the air, because they were UHF only markets in the analog days, while Fort Wayne in the digital era added a VHF-Hi, & South Bend Remained a UHF only market.

For South Bend, WSBT-TV signed on in 1952 on channel 34, but moved to 22 in 1958. That move eventually allocated 34 for non-commercial status. WSBT-TV was also the first South Bend station to go color in the 1950's, even though CBS had little color programming. In the digital era, they started out on 30, but returned to 22.

For Fort Wayne WKJG-TV (now WISE-TV) signed on in 1953 on channel 33

I did not include Chicago in this because I knew that this thread was about the first TV station overall that was a UHF. Chicago had 5 VHF stations on the air prior to WCIU signing on in 1964. I believe for the first UHF in Chicago, they were the last to go color, as they didn't go color until 1978.
 
The first television station in Flint, Michigan was a UHF, WTAC/16 which signed on in 1953 and was affiliated with ABC and DuMont. The station shut down less than a year later and their tower was even destroyed by a tornado in 1956. The original facilities became home to WJRT/12 when it signed on in 1958.
 
KTVU-36 In Stockton, California (1953-55)
 
Madmansam said:
KTVU-36 In Stockton, California (1953-55)
Click to expand...

Indeed - and even if you argue Stockton as a separate market from Sacramento at the time, KCCC-40 in Sacramento (Sept. 1953) also beat the Vs up there to air.

One imagines there were a lot of tall towers on homes in Sacramento and Stockton prior to that, with big antennas aimed over the hills to San Francisco...
 
The Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville market. The first station here was Raleigh's WNAO-TV, channel 28, in 1953. The market's first VHF, WTVD, channel 11 in Durham, signed on a year later in 1954, followed by Chapel Hill's WUNC-TV, channel 4, and a second UHF, Fayetteville's WFLB-TV, channel 18, both in 1955, and the market's third and final VHF station, Raleigh's WRAL-TV, channel 5, in 1956. Both UHF stations folded, WNAO-TV in 1957, and WFLB-TV in 1958.
 
Of course, nearby Youngstown OH is still a UHF island to this day, post-transition and RF channel changes included.

I'm pretty sure the Mahoning Valley has never been home to a VHF station, even an LPTV, though of course it gets VHF signals out of Cleveland and Pittsburgh. And it still does post-transtion.

CBS affiliate WKBN/27 hit the airwaves first in early 1953, with NBC affiliate WFMJ/73 (!) following about three months later, later moving to its current (via PSIP now) 21. WYTV/33, once WKST/45 New Castle PA, rounded out the big three with ABC. 27 is RF 41 these days, and 33 is RF 36.

PBS affiliate WNEO/45 Alliance serves the market from a Salem transmitter site (on its RF channel 45, occupied long ago by WKST and later by independent WXTV for a while).

Fox came in first via an LPTV combo in the 1990s, WYFX-LP/62 Youngstown - WFXI-CA/31 Mercer..."Fox 31/62", with 31 later moving to 17...17 shut down and 62 converted to LD 19 a while ago, with WYFX still riding, now in SD, on WKBN/27.2, all now known as Fox Youngstown.

Not a single VHF signal of any sort based in the market.
 
Many smaller towns had lone UHF's in the early 50's, and most of them had gone dark by the mid/late 50's. The original FCC plan was to have VHF's in the major markets, and UHF's in the smaller cities. By the mid 50's, the FCC had reversed course and were allowing new VHF's to come on the air in the smaller markets, effectively putting the little U's out of business. In my neck of the woods, Longview, TX had KTVE-32 and Tyler, TX had KETX-19 on the air in the 1951-1955 timeframe. In 1955, KLTV-7 went on the air in Tyler, and people were able to receive it without an additional converter and antenna, so both 32 and 19 were dark by the end of 1955.

Read this very interesting story about KTVE and the early days of small town UHF stations and the struggles that most had.

http://chalkhillmedia.org/Museum/KTVE.htm
 
KML-224 said:
Of course that's not counting them receiving CBS 3 and FOX 61 from Hartford/New Haven. :)
Click to expand...

WTIC-TV (at least the channel 61 version NOT owned by Travelers) didn't sign on until 1984. However, the Hartford market's WKNB/WNBC/WHNB (later WVIT) channel 30 was available as a fringe signal to Springfield viewers starting in 1953. And yes, channel 3 (which was once WTIC-TV) served both markets for decades.
 
Lexington Ky. WLEX in 1955 on channel 18 followed by WKYT in 1957 on channel 27, WTVQ 1968 on channel 62 then moved to channel 36, WDKY channel 56 in 1986, and WKLE the main KET station in 1968.
 
Greg Branch said:
Many smaller towns had lone UHF's in the early 50's, and most of them had gone dark by the mid/late 50's. The original FCC plan was to have VHF's in the major markets, and UHF's in the smaller cities. By the mid 50's, the FCC had reversed course and were allowing new VHF's to come on the air in the smaller markets, effectively putting the little U's out of business.
Click to expand...

In some cases, like Reading & Allentown PA, their UHF network affiliates died when the three big VHFs in Philly built the Roxborough antenna farm in 1957. IIRC, Reading and Allentown had two UHF network affiliates each. They didn't last long.

Some stations did survive, though. WLFI-TV/18 Lafayette IN (CBS) and WHIZ-TV/18 Zanesville OH (NBC) are still around, despite being about an hour's drive from Indianapolis and Columbus, respectively. WLBC-TV/49 Muncie IN, 40 miles from Indy, kept going as an NBC/ABC affiliate until 1971, when it was sold to Ball State University and became WIPB.
 
I can't that this station wasn't mentioned yet...in fact, it was the first commercially-licensed UHF station in the country: KPTV in Portland, Oregon.

KPTV signed-on in September 1952, on Channel 27; it merged with a VHF station (KLOR Channel 12) in 1957 when both stations were purchased by the same company, with KPTV's license taking over the channel 12 signal, and shuttering 27.

Another city where an UHF signed on before a VHF is in Rockford, Illinois, where WTVO went on the air in May 1953 (then on channel 39, moved to 17 in the mid-60s), pre-dating WREX (Channel 13) by five months.
 
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