Experimental TV Stations

[Stanislav]

Over the years, when perusing copies of Broadcasting Yearbook or Television Factbook at the library, I was always intrigued by the brief listings for “experimental” TV stations. I often wondered to what extent test broadcasts were actually done, and whether any members of the general public were fortuitously situated to see any unusual signals. Some of these authorizations were low power, probably with a low HAAT as well, so few viewers would be in range, but some of the big corporate experimental licenses allowed for full-power operation.

As an example, here is the list of experimental TV stations from 40 years back, in the 1969 Broadcasting Yearbook. (Edited, with annotations.)

General Electric Co. - KE2XHX Syracuse, N.Y. Authority to test on all 82 VHF and UHF TV channels; 50 kw. KA2ZQF Cazenovia, N.Y. Authority to test on all 82 VHF and UHF TV channels to test and develop transmitting antennas; 10 w. [GE’s labs. Much as with RCA’s lab facilities (see below), I wonder to what extent this authority was actually used, and if any laypeople caught any tests?]

Kear and Kennedy – KB2XDE Arden Hills, Minn. Authority to test on all 82 VHF and UHF TV channels to determine the possibility of interference for various computers manufactured by Control Data Corp., Minneapolis, Minn.; 200 w. [Wonder if they were testing the possibility of interference by the computers to TV signals, or vice-versa?]

Mid-State Radio Supply Co. – KO2XFP Wenatchee, Wash. For sight tests and demonstration. Ch. 70, 10 w. [Given the licensee, channel and power, I’m guessing this was for demonstration of translator equipment?]

Perdue U. – Lafayette, Ind. KS2XGA, ch. 72, 12 kw; KS2XGB, ch. 78, 12 kw; KS2XGC, ch. 76, 12 kw; KS2XGD, ch. 76, 12 kw; KS2XGE, ch. 41, 12 kw; KS2XGF, ch. 47, 12 kw; KS2XGG, ch. 53, 12 kw; KS2XGH, ch. 59, 12 kw. [These are obviously related to the Stratovision/MPATI project; I only know of them ever actually operating on chs. 72 and 76 (and I’m not sure why 76 seems to be assigned to two different licenses), but it looks like they had several other authorized channels, and I wonder if they ever tested on those?]

Radio Corp. of America – KE2XNY Cherry Hill Township. N.J. Chs. 2 through 6 with ERP of 100 kw; chs. 7 through 13 with ERP of 316 kw, and chs. 14 through 83 with 1,000 kw. [Obviously RCA’s famous NJ labs where so much TV technology was developed; interesting that they were permitted full power on VHF and a hefty megawatt on UHF just for testing/experimental purposes. This listing, IIRC, persisted through the years in these publications, and I really wonder to what extent they actually used this authority – did any NYC-area viewers occasionally catch a mysterious TP or bars on some obscure channel in the middle of the night?]

Sylvania Electric Products, Inc. – KG2XDU Emporium, Pa. Such frequencies as may be authorized by FCC chief engineer; 300 watts. For testing low power equipment in connection with feasibility of extending TV coverage to isolated communities. [This is shown as having been granted in 1951, so lord knows if it was even still being used for anything; more like early translator tests, perhaps.]

[The Sylvania listing is then followed by these four experimental stations which may or may not be connected to the above (it’s not clear from the formatting):] KG2ZEJ (0.2 watts, 1990-2008 mc); KG2ZEL (30 watts, ch. 82); KG2XEK (0.2 watts, 2042-2059 mc); KG2ZEJ (0.2 watts, ch. 22). [With stuff in the 2 gHz range, I wonder if this was for testing some of those over-the-air unwired cable systems that never really took off in popularity?]

Zenith Radio Corp. – KS2XBR Chicago. Ch. 17, 1 kw. [This would be for Zenith’s early pay-TV tests, I believe, but I thought those were conducted on ch. 38 back in the day? I’ve never heard of tests being done on ch. 17, but the license shows “488,000 to 504,000 kc.” That strange format (listing the freq range in kc) leads me to believe this is the legacy/original license that was never updated. Chicago-area geeks: sort it out for this Florida boy, please...]

I know many other such licenses came and went over the decades. Has anyone here ever caught an experimental transmission, or at least something they suspected was such?

BTW, I do recall that before WRAL in Raleigh put the first commercial DTV signal on the air, there was a low power experimental station somewhere near D.C. that was used for the earliest DTV development tests. I know that some D.C. area geeks and TV-DXers did note this signal (as the now-characteristic “dirty snow” that DTV produces on an analog set, there being at the time no consumer-available DTV equipment). Does anyone recall what channel these tests were done on?

 

[compubit]

Per Wikipedia:

WRC-TV's studios were the home from 1996 to about 2002 of WHD-TV, an experimental high definition television station owned by a consortium of industry groups and stations which carried the nation's first program in the format transmitted by a television station, an episode of Meet the Press [4], and aired on Channel 34 to provide the FCC and the National Association of Broadcasters a channel to conduct many experiments in the new format [5][6]. WHD-TV was discontinued around 2002.

 

[Stanislav]

Per Wikipedia:

WRC-TV's studios were the home from 1996 to about 2002 of WHD-TV, an experimental high definition television station owned by a consortium of industry groups and stations which carried the nation's first program in the format transmitted by a television station, an episode of Meet the Press [4], and aired on Channel 34 to provide the FCC and the National Association of Broadcasters a channel to conduct many experiments in the new format [5][6]. WHD-TV was discontinued around 2002.

I'm sure the WHD-TV pseudo-calls were for publicity only, and that officially it probably carried one of those KX2XXX style calls.

 

[bpatrick]

The experimental stations of the '20s and '30s
operated on AM signals; I've read stories about
people in Amarillo being able to pick up a station
in Des Moines because AM signals (esp. clear-channel)
travel great distances at night. I've also read about
a plane flying over New England that picked up Don
Lee's station in Los Angeles (W6XAO, I believe were
the calls; it's now KCBS). In the analog era, TV operated
on FM, which is why you could pick up stations on Ch. 6
at 87.7 on your radio. I don't know what frequencies
will be in use now, in the digital era.

 

[w9wi]

The experimental stations of the '20s and '30s
operated on AM signals; I've read stories about
people in Amarillo being able to pick up a station
in Des Moines because AM signals (esp. clear-channel)
travel great distances at night. I've also read about
a plane flying over New England that picked up Don
Lee's station in Los Angeles (W6XAO, I believe were
the calls; it's now KCBS). In the analog era, TV operated
on FM, which is why you could pick up stations on Ch. 6
at 87.7 on your radio. I don't know what frequencies
will be in use now, in the digital era.

Some early (1920s, early 1930s) TV experiments were run on frequencies above the 160-meter ham radio band -- between 2 and 3.5MHz. These were mechanical (spinning scanning disk) low-resolution systems. (48 lines was typical - yes, that's 1/10 the resolution of modern standard-definition) By the mid-1930s, electronic scanning was in use and TV moved to VHF.

_________________________________________________

Broadcast TV video has never been FM. The audio was FM from the original NTSC commercial standards. (though just barely -- at least until 1939 and possibly later they were using AM for the audio. The U.K. ran AM TV audio into the mid-1980s.)

For the most part, digital TV uses the same frequencies as analog. The difference is that channels 52-69 are being removed from TV service - digital TV will eventually be channels 2-51 only.

 

[bpatrick]

Thanks for being more precise about FM, but
I stand by what I said about the reception of
those early mechanical (spinning-disk) sets.
What I do know is that I can no longer listen
to WECT Wilmington, NC, on my way to Myrtle
Beach (and if you want an incident I found mind-
boggling, about twenty years ago I was in Georgia
one Saturday morning and listened to "The
Bugs Bunny And Tweety Show" on WJBF Augusta.
That was weird!