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Reception in between channel 8 Lancaster and channel 8 Johnstown?

K

KML0224

Guest
Does anybody on these boards live in central Pennsylvania? If so, does anybody have interference issues with reception of WGAL-TV (NBC) in Lancaster and/or WWCP-TV (FOX) of Johnstown? I bring this up since I recently received a letter from the engineer of WGAL-TV. He mentioned how their station signed on as channel 4 in the late 1940s. It soon caused interference issues with channel 4 of Washington, DC. They were then moved to channel 8 with little trouble in the early 1950s. He then mentioned how the FCC "shoehorned" WWCP-TV into place over in Johnstown back in the 1980s. With help with FCC info and a distance calculator at www.indo.com/distance/index.html , I discovered that these two transmitters (WGAL-TV and WWCP-TV) are only 135 miles apart. Interesting.
 
> Does anybody on these boards live in central Pennsylvania?
> If so, does anybody have interference issues with reception
> of WGAL-TV (NBC) in Lancaster and/or WWCP-TV (FOX) of
> Johnstown? I bring this up since I recently received a
> letter from the engineer of WGAL-TV. He mentioned how their
> station signed on as channel 4 in the late 1940s. It soon
> caused interference issues with channel 4 of Washington, DC.
> They were then moved to channel 8 with little trouble in the
> early 1950s. He then mentioned how the FCC "shoehorned"
> WWCP-TV into place over in Johnstown back in the 1980s. With
> help with FCC info and a distance calculator at
> www.indo.com/distance/index.html , I discovered that these
> two transmitters (WGAL-TV and WWCP-TV) are only 135 miles
> apart. Interesting.
>

WWCP's transmitter is actually in between Johnstown and Pittsburgh. Channel 8 Johnstown was originally dropped in by the FCC as a Pittsburgh license but its owner who was granted the CP applied to be licensed top Johnstown because programmimg would be cheaper there and it was felt that Johnstown was even more underserved than Pittsburgh. So the FCC granted the license to Johnstown but the tower would be about 30 miles west of the city so it would still reach Pittsburgh with a grade A signal (by the way all the Johnstown VHF stations get grade B coverage in Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh VHF stations get grade B coverage in Johnstown). The transmitter is far enough west to not interfere with WGAL. Landcaster is slightly southwest of Harrisburg so its closer to 175 miles apart which is slightly closer to average for VHF stations.

Also the mountain ranges between harrisburgh and Scranton metro areas and Johnstown/Altoona metro areas are extremely high. There is very little overlap between these 2 markets. In fact there are places in the valleys where its impossible to get TV reception over the air at all. The only possible interference would be on top of some of the highest mountains where there is little if any population anyway.

By the way in 1996 The FCC relicensed Johnstown's Channel 19 to Pittsburgh due to the fact Johnstown got Channel 8 instead of Pittsburgh.
 
The distance I came up with was between point "A" and point "B", or the tower sites of the two stations, according to the FCC database.

By the way, Lancaster is to the SOUTHEAST of Harrisburg.

As for WNPA-TV channel 19 being moved into the Pittsburgh, I had heard of that. It became their UPN station. Now, is there a reason why the station is licensed to Jeanette, PA and not Pittsburgh?
 
> The distance I came up with was between point "A" and point
> "B", or the tower sites of the two stations, according to
> the FCC database.
>
> By the way, Lancaster is to the SOUTHEAST of Harrisburg.
>
> As for WNPA-TV channel 19 being moved into the Pittsburgh, I
> had heard of that. It became their UPN station. Now, is
> there a reason why the station is licensed to Jeanette, PA
> and not Pittsburgh?
>

WNPA Channel 19 (formerly WFAT and WBPA) used to be in the Jownstown/Altoona Market. After the station lost a major network affiliation in that market, they moved to Jeanette to be in the Pittsburgh Market as in independent, or UPN.

It was not possible for the station, WNPA, to get its city of license into Pittsburgh, since Pittsburgh already has several licenses. However, the loophole, of course, is just use a suburb that is within the DMA, and use the must-carry rules to demand cable companies to carry the station, whether the station has relevance or not.

In Philadelphia, Univision can't change WUVP's city of license to Philadelphia, nor can Pax change WPPX's city of license to Philadelphia; Pittsburgh, like Philadelphia, can't gain any peripheral stations to be licensed into the city.

Your right Lancaster is east of Harrisburg. But WGAL broadcasts 17 miles west of Lancaster, so somewhere central to Harrisburg, Lebanon, Lancaster and York.

If they had a tower in Lancaster city itself, lot more people in eastern PA would be in the fringe of WGAL's signal. But, that would cause detraction to KYW and now WCAU, when WGAL isn't supposed to serve the Philly suburbs.

They reach Berks County, but don't penetrate much else within the Philadelphia market. And, WGAL doesn't do Berks news. But, Comcast Reading carries them by mustcarry. In Reading, Lancaster is closer than Philadelphia. Mustcarry, when it comes to duplicating networks, depends upon city of license, not tower location. Comcast can't drop WGAL there, in favor of CN8, as long as Hearst requests WGAL to be kept on the cable dial. Comcast can't drop WCAU, as WCAU NBC has a retransmission agreement with Comcast for the entire DMA, and Berks is in the Philly DMA, so Comcast Reading mustcarry both.

Does anyone know, did WGAL once broadcast more east, closer to Philly? The Phila. Inquirer for a long time used to give listings for WGAL and WLYH, NBC8 and CBS15. I wonder if back long ago, if more viewers in the Philadelphia suburbs, besides Berks County residents, could receive WGAL, over the air. Otherwise, the Inquirer was being quite generous giving listings for these out of market stations, that only residents in Berks (a quite far away county) could see. I remember the Inquirer, awhile back for a short period, maybe for only NJ subscribers had the NY VHF stations (including 2, 4, 5 and 7). But it really only would make sense for customers in Trenton and Mercer County, but I doubt Mercer County has a high number of subscribers to the Inquirer, to begin with.
 
When I lived in Hershey, I had an old TV with an antenna and the knobs to switch between VHF and UHF. I could never get Ch.8, but I was able to get the Harrisburg UHF stations and the stations out of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, which were very clear! So I don't think it would be a problem. I also know in Lebanon, Comcast doesn't carry WCAU, only KYW and WPVI. However, since Lebanon is closer to Harrisburg, the cable channels 3 and 6 end up sharing with cable channels, the former getting local advertising, the latter C-SPAN2, except whenever the two have newscasts and occasionally, programming that isn't on in each other's market. For example, they use to show Guiding Light on KYW at 10 and then on again at 3 for WHP. Confusing, isn't it?
 
Re: Channel 19 COL

> As for WNPA-TV channel 19 being moved into the Pittsburgh, I
> had heard of that. It became their UPN station. Now, is
> there a reason why the station is licensed to Jeanette, PA
> and not Pittsburgh?

Spacing issues with Cleveland (WOIO-TV) is my guess.
 
Re: Channel 19 COL

> Spacing issues with Cleveland (WOIO-TV) is my guess.
>

WOIO-TV (CBS) channel 19 is licensed to Shaker Heights, OH.
 
Re: Channel 19 COL

> > Spacing issues with Cleveland (WOIO-TV) is my guess.
> >
>
> WOIO-TV (CBS) channel 19 is licensed to Shaker Heights, OH.

Shaker Heights is a suburb of Cleveland. WOIO's transmitter is somewhere near Parma (I'm not that familiar with Cleveland - I'm going by tiger.census.gov and Google Maps).

Their antenna is directional with slight nulls to the SE, SW, and NNW to protect Pittsburgh/Jeanette, Cincinnati, and (I think) Bay City MI stations on Channel 19, respectively.
 
Re: Channel 19 COL

> [WOIO's] antenna is directional with slight nulls to the SE,
> SW, and NNW to protect Pittsburgh/Jeanette, Cincinnati, and
> (I think) Bay City MI stations on Channel 19, respectively.
>

Are they also a little close to Toronto (TVO's CICA ch.19)?
 
> It was not possible for the station, WNPA, to get its city
> of license into Pittsburgh, since Pittsburgh already has
> several licenses. However, the loophole, of course, is
> just use a suburb that is within the DMA, and use the
> must-carry rules to demand cable companies to carry the
> station, whether the station has relevance or not.

Also, in order to claim must-carry, the station's signal must also cover the main city in that market. For example -- recently, KMOH ch.6, a Spanish-language religious station in Kingman, AZ (in the Phoenix market), tried to get a must-carry in Phoenix. KMOH was refused by the FCC, since their signal doesn't reach Phoenix, about 200 miles SE of Kingman.
 
> > If so, does anybody have interference issues with
> reception
...
> > early 1950s. He then mentioned how the FCC "shoehorned"
> > WWCP-TV into place over in Johnstown back in the 1980s.
...
> > two transmitters (WGAL-TV and WWCP-TV) are only 135 miles
> > apart. Interesting.
>
> WWCP's transmitter is actually in between Johnstown and
> Pittsburgh. Channel 8 Johnstown was originally dropped in by

Yep, but the 135-mile distance between transmitters is accurate.

> the FCC as a Pittsburgh license but its owner who was
> granted the CP applied to be licensed top Johnstown because
> programmimg would be cheaper there and it was felt that
> Johnstown was even more underserved than Pittsburgh. So the
> FCC granted the license to Johnstown but the tower would be
> about 30 miles west of the city so it would still reach
> Pittsburgh with a grade A signal (by the way all the

Back in the 1970s there were a number of "VHF drop-in" allotments made. Other examples include channel 11 in Charleston, WV and channel 8 in Knoxville, Tenn.. They considered (but didn't adopt) more, such as channel 10 in Clarksville, Tenn..

These were allotted to cities the Commission felt were shortchanged with VHF allotments, and where the FCC felt they could be accomodated without interference.

Note that all of these stations use directional antennas to reduce radiation in the directions of the previously-existing nearby stations on the same channels.

The channel 8 allotment was never made to Pittsburgh. It would have been an even more difficult allotment, due both to channel 8 in Cleveland and channel 7 in Wheeling.

> By the way in 1996 The FCC relicensed Johnstown's Channel 19
> to Pittsburgh due to the fact Johnstown got Channel 8
> instead of Pittsburgh.

The channel 19 move was strictly a business decision, made on the licensee's initiative.

For a station to get must-carry protection on cable & satellite, it must not only provide a decent signal to the cable head-end, but it must be in the same market as the cable system. Johnstown is of course a different market from Pittsburgh -- Jeannette isn't. By relicensing the station from Johnstown to Jeannette, it got must-carry protection on Pittsburgh-market cable systems. Channel 2 in Columbia, N.C. recently got itself reallotted to Edenton for the same reason, to enter the Norfolk, Va. market & get on cable.

The channel 19 transmitter didn't move, it's still where it was when it was licensed to Johnstown. If it provides a city-grade signal to both cities, they can do that.

The FCC wants reallotments to provide a "preferential arrangement". Moving channel 19 from Johnstown to Pittsburgh would remove service from Johnstown and move it to a city that's already well-served by six stations. Not a preferential arrangement.

Moving it to Jeannette would provide first local service to Jeannette, while leaving Johnstown with two stations. Preferential arrangement. (yes, "first local service to Jeannette" is rather bogus, but that's the way the procedure works...)

Also... from the current site the transmitter doesn't provide a "city-grade" signal across Pittsburgh. It does across Jeannette.
 
> and occasionally, programming that isn't on in each other's market. For example, they use to show Guiding Light on KYW at 10 and then on again at 3 for WHP. Confusing, isn't it?

Very. Is this because CBS soaps don't really have a usual time that they air, a la ABC's soaps?<P ID="signature">______________
Cary from Cherry Hill, NJ</P>
 
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