New NJ VHF Station?

[w9wi]

Well, that's interesting!

PMCM's proposals were to move a channel 3 station from Nevada to Middletown Twp, NJ and a channel 2 station from Wyoming to Wilmington, Delaware.

As noted, the Commission ruled those proposals weren't covered by the old law.

They did however rule the law did require them to allot a VHF channel to every state if it was feasible to do so. So, they allotted channel 4 to Atlantic City, NJ and channel 5 to Seaford, Delaware. Both channels have gone through the assignment process; the Atlantic City station is on the air (WACP), and the Seaford station has a construction permit. (WMDE) WACP's theoretical service contour easily covers Philadelphia, and WMDE's covers both Baltimore and Washington. Presumably, the stations will receive must-carry protection in these three cities. (thus, their poor low-band VHF over-the-air coverage really doesn't much matter)

It is not technically feasible to assign any other VHF channel to either state. WPVI prevents the assignment of channel 6 in these areas, and a variety of other stations prevent the assignment of any high-VHF channel.

Note that they avoided assigning the channels requested by PMCM. I don't know this as a fact, but it sure looks like the FCC was hedging their bets, in case the courts upheld PMCM's appeal.

It will be interesting to see whether they bother with the Wilmington station..... I don't see where Wilmington can support a commercial TV station on its own, and I think with WACP on the air it's going to be pretty difficult to make a go of it with *another* commercial station serving Philadelphia.

The move of the Press TV stations wasn't covered by the old law yet the FCC auctioned off two VHF frequencies based upon the same law.

Well, again, while the FCC obviously felt the Press TV move wasn't covered by the old law, the Federal Court felt otherwise.

 

[SixtiesGuy]

Why is the maximum power less for digital tv? I think it is a million watts on UHF instead of 5 million watts.

In essence, the theory that guided the FCC in establishing its policies for DTV was that digital broadcasting required less power than analog broadcasting to maintain the same coverage area. In what was an embarrassment for the engineers who developed this theory, in practice there were widespread problems with it under real-world conditions that became apparent upon the transition to DTV. My understanding is that in many cases the FCC had to authorize some significant power increases, or even moves of stations off the VHF low- and high-bands, to address deficiencies in that theory.

 

[joshzz]

REGARDING the addition of WACP/4 in Atlantic City: I've watched the station. It's informercials 24/7. The only time they break away is to do a station id. :-\

 

[ngriffin]

If the spectrum auction and repacking come to pass, lo-VHF stations such as these might be valuable to an operator who wished to "cash out" their UHF signal, yet keep some OTA presence.

 

[Bill_W]

PMCM's proposals were to move a channel 3 station from Nevada to Middletown Twp, NJ and a channel 2 station from Wyoming to Wilmington, Delaware.

Presumably, the stations will receive must-carry protection in these three cities. (thus, their poor low-band VHF over-the-air coverage really doesn't much matter)

Yup. WACP is on both FiOS and Xfinity in the entire Philly metro area in both SD & HD. On FiOS they are right between channel 3&6. Nothing but infomercials. A waste.

 

[joshzz]

It would be nice if they used the main channel for real programming and an HD-2 channel for the commercials.

That will be a very valuable piece of real estate should they decide to sell.