Question about TV channel spacing

[Gregg.]

Just as Channels 4 and 5 could be assigned to the same city (NYC, LA,, Boston, etc.) so too could Channels 6 and 7. It wasn't as common. But because Channels 5 and 6 are separated from both Channels 2 through 4 and 7 through 13, it happened in a few places...

--The Spokane market had 6 KHQ-TV NBC and 7 KSPS PBS.

--The Boise market had 6 KIVI ABC and 7 KTVB NBC.

 

[fybush]

Also Miami, Denver, Omaha, Winnipeg for 6 and 7 in the same market. Even more rare were the markets with both 13 and 14, if only because 14 was excluded from use in a lot of larger cities because that part of the UHF spectrum was shared with two-way radio services.

Albuquerque, El Paso and later Houston had 13 and 14 in the same market. I can't readily think of any others.

 

[Joey1986]

Since this thread is about TV and not radio, I suggest that this thread be moved to the National TV board.

What say you, @lanceventa or @fybush?

 

[genius]

One question I wanted to ask was how accurate was the 200 mile rule for stations? I.e A Channel 4 had to be 200 miles from another market’s channel 4.

But there were exceptions to this rule, namely Albany & NYC and Baltimore & NYC.

 

[IM42A]

Since this thread is about TV and not radio, I suggest that this thread be moved to the National TV board.

What say you, @lanceventa or @fybush?

Yes, that would make sense. I didn't realize it wasn't already.

 

[IM42A]

One question I wanted to ask was how accurate was the 200 mile rule for stations? I.e A Channel 4 had to be 200 miles from another market’s channel 4.

But there were exceptions to this rule, namely Albany & NYC and Baltimore & NYC.

WRT Albany and NYC on channel 13 (WNYT/WNET) I've wondered that myself. Here's a thread from way back when, though it doesn't discuss the reasoning behind the apparent exception (starts on post #12):

https://radiodiscussions.com/threads/two-stations-on-the-same-frequency-very-close-in-distance.626827/

Per the 1963 Television Factbook, their transmitter was on Spruce Mountain (near Corinth) in Saratoga County, IIHTG precisely because of the WNET situation, but by 1966 they'd moved down to Bald Mountain, nearer to Albany, where they stayed until at least 1997 (the last year for which I have access to TVFB information).

Fun fact, in 1958, their calls were going to be WTAS, but someone thought that was too close to TASS (the news agency in the USSR), so it became WAST instead. (Good thing the calls weren't WKGB.)

 

[IM42A]

Also, the "all-channel receiver act" never actually required TVs to tune in all channels simultaneously. Many older VCRs had varactor tuners with presets for channels 2 to 13. If you wanted to add a UHF channel, you had to sacrifice one of the unused VHF channels in your area and reprogram it to UHF.

I'm kind of lost here. Is this anything like the pushbutton tuners that were somewhat common in the 1980s, where you would tune each pushbutton to the desired station with a small serrated wheel? (This was very common in Europe, where you would have a row of buttons, and a hidden door that would open up to allow you to do the presets for each channel. Europeans typically don't think in terms of channel numbers, just individual stations or "programs" as they call them.)

 

[Mediafrog+]

I'm kind of lost here. Is this anything like the pushbutton tuners that were somewhat common in the 1980s, where you would tune each pushbutton to the desired station with a small serrated wheel?

Yes, exactly. VCR’s would have a number of buttons that could be set to desired channels.

I had a Sony SL-5200 Betamax, purchased in 1983. It had 14 of those buttons, with tuning set by a serrated wheel as well as a little switch for VHF-low, VHF-high, or UHF. There were also little film channel numbers provided that could be inserted in the faceplate for each button. Lots of TVs of that era had something similar, though I never owned one with that arrangement (I went straight from the old clickable tuners to the electronic version.)

Sony Betamax Model SL-5200

 

[KeithE4]

One question I wanted to ask was how accurate was the 200 mile rule for stations? I.e A Channel 4 had to be 200 miles from another market’s channel 4.

But there were exceptions to this rule, namely Albany & NYC and Baltimore & NYC.

WRGB Albany moved from Channel 4 to 6 in 1954 due to common interference between it and then-WRCA-TV NYC. Channel 13 was common to Albany and NYC beginning in 1958 when WTRI moved from Channel 35 and became WAST (now WNYT).

Baltimore never had a Channel 4. That was WRC-TV Washington. They are 200 miles apart.

 

[fybush]

WRGB Albany moved from Channel 4 to 6 in 1954 due to common interference between it and then-WRCA-TV NYC. Channel 13 was common to Albany and NYC beginning in 1958 when WTRI moved from Channel 35 and became WAST (now WNYT).

Baltimore never had a Channel 4. That was WRC-TV Washington. They are 200 miles apart.

The reference was to 13 in Albany, NYC and Washington, and the answer is that at various times over the years, the FCC has been willing to allow short spacing in order to solve what are largely political problems.

13 was dropped in for Albany as part of the larger shuffle that swapped 5 and 8 in Rochester and Syracuse (to allow for 9 in Syracuse and 13 in Albany) and moved 13 to 2 in Utica, so that ABC could have VHF affiliates in Rochester, Syracuse and Albany.

The FCC's original plan was to make Albany an all UHF market by moving WRGB to 47, but GE was a powerful political force that pushed back hard, and so a lot of compromises were made to get 13 and 10 into Albany in place of 35 and 41.

That's why 13 never moved from Bald Mountain in Troy until the analog era ended, and why 10 was first allocated to Vails Mills, out beyond Amsterdam, and then finally was able to go to the Helderbergs with a DA to protect short spacing to both Rochester and Providence (and I think Montreal, too!)

 

[vchimpanzee]

The WCIV saga is one of the more complicated stories in the history of local broadcasting. It breaks down something like this: Sinclair sold WCIV to Howard Stirk (Armstrong Williams's company), which changed it to WGWG. Long story short, the WCIV intellectual unit was transferred to Sinclair-owned WMMP (channel 36), the ABC affiliation and WCIV's branding went over to 36.2 (leaving My Network TV on 36.1), but they still continued to call it "ABC4", WMMP's call letters changed to WCIV. Fast-forward to present, WGWG is PSIP channel 4 and uses this for their various subchannels, AFAIK they don't actively market themselves as "channel 4" (not sure if they have any local programming at all, it's all diginets, MeTV et al), and you're left with the quirky situation of WCIV calling itself "ABC4" on PSIP channel 36.2 (but no quirkier than WBTS in Boston calling itself "NBC10 Boston" while being on a Class A station that shares a full-power transmitter with WGBX --- confused yet? --- and, on top of all of that, is on PSIP channel 15.1).

I don't know how Charleston viewers, who were used to WCIV being on channel 4 forever and a day, deal with two stations being "channel 4", and as to WGWG, I don't know what they call that:

I checked the Myrtle Beach Sun News TV listings. I have access to all actual papers through my library card. It says 4 beside the WCIV call letters but 36.2 is shown beside it, something not done for other stations.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Albuquerque, El Paso and later Houston had 13 and 14 in the same market. I can't readily think of any others.

Asheville NC has WLOS at 13 and a low-power station in nearby Hickory was at 14. I am told that station is full power now but I don't know if it happened while analog TV was still in existence.

 

[IM42A]

Asheville NC has WLOS at 13 and a low-power station in nearby Hickory was at 14. I am told that station is full power now but I don't know if it happened while analog TV was still in existence.

Just to clarify, WHKY was never a "low-power" station in the sense that is understood today, it was licensed for full power as there was AFAIK no provision for LPTVs as there is today. That said, they did run very low power, 8.91 kw, and their contours were basically like a little squashed peanut covering four or five counties around Hickory. By 1981 they had increased to 273 kw but still barely grazed Gaston County, and had gone up to 656.1 kw by 1984 with little change. They stayed that way through at least 2002 (the last year for which I have TVFB data).

Fun fact, WHKY once carried the NBC Nightly News, in the early 1980s, when WRET/WPCQ took a pass on it. I'm assuming they picked it up OTA from WXII or WCYB.

 

[IM42A]

I checked the Myrtle Beach Sun News TV listings. I have access to all actual papers through my library card. It says 4 beside the WCIV call letters but 36.2 is shown beside it, something not done for other stations.

They only broadcast it on 36.2 because they have to. In the minds of Charleston viewers it is, and always will be, "ABC4". I imagine that they put WMMP on 36.1 to force must-carry, and tell the dish providers, "oh, by the way, if you want to offer ABC in Charleston, you have to carry both", but they could accomplish the same goal by placing WCIV on 36.1 and offering the same ultimatum. So I just don't know.

I can't normally get WCIV in Columbia because of WZRB on OTA 25 (on a very rare occasion I can null out WZRB and get it, but not otherwise), unless conditions are just right and I can get it via WGWG's ATSC 3.0 lighthouse.

 

[Huff]

at least 1997 (the last year for which I have access to TVFB information).

ICYMI, @DavidEduardo 's World Radio History website has most Television Factbooks from 1949 through 2008 available here:

TELEVISION FACTBOOK: Complete directories of US TV stations with coverage maps

Television Factbook was founded in 1945 by Martin Codel's Radio News Bureau, which published Television Digest It was located in Washington, D.C. Albert Warren became senior editor in 1956, and eventually became the publisher. The corporate name was then changed to Television Digest, Inc. The...

www.worldradiohistory.com

 

[IM42A]

ICYMI, @DavidEduardo 's World Radio History website has most Television Factbooks from 1949 through 2008 available here:

TELEVISION FACTBOOK: Complete directories of US TV stations with coverage maps

Television Factbook was founded in 1945 by Martin Codel's Radio News Bureau, which published Television Digest It was located in Washington, D.C. Albert Warren became senior editor in 1956, and eventually became the publisher. The corporate name was then changed to Television Digest, Inc. The...

www.worldradiohistory.com

That's where I get my information. This resource is invaluable.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Nashville had stations on 4 and 5 until the digital conversion.

 

[IM42A]

Nashville had stations on 4 and 5 until the digital conversion.

Yes, again, protected by the 4 mHz gap between the two channels. Channels 2 and 3, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 have no such gap.

 

[davideduardo]

ICYMI, @DavidEduardo 's World Radio History website has most Television Factbooks from 1949 through 2008 available here:

TELEVISION FACTBOOK: Complete directories of US TV stations with coverage maps

Television Factbook was founded in 1945 by Martin Codel's Radio News Bureau, which published Television Digest It was located in Washington, D.C. Albert Warren became senior editor in 1956, and eventually became the publisher. The corporate name was then changed to Television Digest, Inc. The...

www.worldradiohistory.com

I extend my hand seeking alms: Anyone who has those missing Television Factbooks can loan them or donate them. And I'll pay the shipping.

Nearly every library that used to have old Broadcasting Yearbook issues, Television Factbook editions and the like has disposed of them... often in the dumpster.

 

[IM42A]

I extend my hand seeking alms: Anyone who has those missing Television Factbooks can loan them or donate them. And I'll pay the shipping.

Nearly every library that used to have old Broadcasting Yearbook issues, Television Factbook editions and the like has disposed of them... often in the dumpster.

I keep my eye out for these at used book stores and library discards, as well as on eBay and used book websites (Abebooks, Alibris, and so on), but they are almost impossible to find, least of all at any reasonable price. Libraries were about the only places you'd ever find them.