Early UHF stations upstate

[dustintv]

So, I know some early UHF stories like WARC in Rochester and WBUF and WBES stories in Buffalo, but what about these stations?

WIET Channel 14 Ithaca
WCBF Channel 15 Buffalo
WHCU Channel 20 Ithaca
WROH Channel 21 Rochester
WTVF Channel 23 Buffalo
WJTN Channel 58 Jamestown

 

[fybush]

Several of these - WIET, WROH, WTVF - were "placeholder" CPs issued to the SUNY regents to hold educational channels until organizations could be formed to operate them. There were a few others. I'll have to dig out the list. WTVF went away after WBUF-TV was donated for noncom use, becoming WNED. The WROH CP sat dormant for many years while RAETA (the local educational broadcasting organization) tried to get all or part of channel 13 in Rochester. RAETA was actually one of the nine parties in the interim Channel 13 licensee that put WOKR on the air in 1962; it subsequently sold that interest when it finally activated channel 21 as WXXI in 1966. Nobody ever came along to operate the Ithaca 14 allotment. I believe other "placeholder" CPs became WCNY, WMHT and WNYE-TV.

WCBF 15 was Rochester, not Buffalo; it was the replacement callsign for WARC-TV after WARC(AM) became WBBF in 1953. WARC-TV/WCBF was never built; nor was the other Rochester UHF CP, WRNY-TV 27. But therein lies an interesting story: WHEC-TV and WVET-TV, which were sharing time on channel 10 as a primary CBS/secondary ABC affiliate, asked the FCC circa 1957 if it would license channel 27 to them as well. The idea was that channel 10 would be the CBS affiliate, channel 27 the ABC affiliate, and WHEC-TV and WVET-TV would swap channels back and forth during the day. (The inspiration, evidently, was WBAP/WFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth, which were ABC on 570 and NBC on 820, with each operator having half the day on each frequency.)

The FCC instead pursued the channel shuffle that allowed a third VHF channel, 13, to come into the market in 1962.

WHCU-TV 20 and WJTN-TV 58 were among the many UHF CPs issued to radio stations and never built. (Or did WHCU-TV operate very briefly? I'm not certain. I know WKNY-TV 66 in Kingston operated briefly in the fifties.

 

[oldschooler1]

So, I know some early UHF stories like WARC in Rochester and WBUF and WBES stories in Buffalo, but what about these stations?

WIET Channel 14 Ithaca
WCBF Channel 15 Buffalo
WHCU Channel 20 Ithaca
WROH Channel 21 Rochester
WTVF Channel 23 Buffalo
WJTN Channel 58 Jamestown

There was a ch. 14 that operated in Elmira for a few months in 1954...Call letters were something like WETV...But then a hurricane came through, blew down their tower that same year, and they never recovered. As well, Elmira had a ch. 24 for a bit, too, but it also went dark. Ch. 18/WSYE (the old WSYR satellite station) went on the air in 1956 in Elmira, and has been there since.
As for ch. 20/WHCU in Ithaca, as far as I know, it never operated.
And wasn't WJTN on the air for some years in the sixties -- then became a repeater for a Buffalo station?

Here is one website dedicated to the defunct UHF's:

http://www.geocities.com/radiojunkie1/morgue.html

 

[oldschooler1]

Then there is this list of 1958 NY TV stations, from Jeff Miller's pages. Quoting that page, The list of U. S. TV stations was taken from the Summer 1958 North American Radio-TV Station Listings, by Vane A. Jones. It shows the ch. 24 in Elmira, and CP's for many others:

NEW YORK
WTEN Albany 10
WTRI Albany 13
WTVZ Albany 17
WPTR-TV Albany 23 new not yet in operation
WNBF-TV Binghamton 12
WINR-TV Binghamton 40
WQTV Binghamton 46 new not yet in operation
WGR-TV Buffalo 2
WBEN-TV Buffalo 4
NEW Buffalo 7 new not yet in operation
WBUF Buffalo 17
WTVF Buffalo 23 new not yet in operation
WNYT-TV Buffalo 29 new not yet in operation
WCNY-TV Carthage 7
WSYE-TV Elmira 18
WTVE Elmira 24 has suspended operations
WCDB Hagman 29 has suspended operations
WIET Ithaca 14 new not yet in operation
WHCU-TV Ithaca 20 new not yet in operation
WCBS-TV New York 2
WRCA-TV New York 4
WABD New York 5
WABC-TV New York 7
WOR-TV New York 9
WPIX New York 11
WREG New York 25 new not yet in operation
WNYC-TV New York 31 new not yet in operation
WKNY-TV Poughkeepsie 66 has suspended operations
WROC-TV Rochester 5
WHEC-TV Rochester 10
WVET-TV Rochester 10
WCBF-TV Rochester 15 new not yet in operation
WROH Rochester 21 new not yet in operation
WRGB Schenectady 6
WSYR-TV Syracuse 3
WHEN-TV Syracuse 8
WHTV Syracuse 43 new not yet in operation
WKTV Utica 2
WTMV Utica 54 new not yet in operation

 

[dustintv]

Thanks guys, interestingly after posting I did a little more research and found the same site oldschooler just listed with TV stations that existed in 1958:

http://jeff560.tripod.com/1958tv.html

I assume if UHF had proven to be viable in the 1950s and had all TV sets come with UHF tuners(wasn't made mandatory until 1964) most of those failed UHF stations would have survived. Heck, DuMont might have a lasted awhile longer.

Fybush, didn't NERW cover the story of WKNY? I seem to recall seeing rare b&W pictures of their newscast, but I can't remember if it was on your site or not.