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This is Only a Test

S

Stanislav

Ha! Betcha thought this question would be about the old Emergency Broadcast System, right? You are wrong, cathode ray-breath..... :D

The question is: have there been any doomed full-power licensed stations that made it to the air just for testing (TP, bars, whatever), but then for whatever reason (finances, etc.) never got around to beginning a regular programming schedule before going dark?
 
There is at least one such case in Detroit, either in 1967 or 1968. A station with the call letters WJMY only broadcast a test card stating their station's letters and the origin of where they were to be located. It was on channel 20. That frequency would be occupied for good by WXON (renamed WDWB and later to WMYD) when it moved from Channel 62 (where they began life in 1968) to Channel 20 in 1972. The Channel 62 frequency would later be occupied by WGPR (launching in 1975) and would be bought by CBS in 1994-95 and renamed WWJ. (I could continue my long essay but I'd be veering off course.)
 
With all the time and money it takes these days to launch a full-power station, I doubt there have been any recently, but I know of three that have come close, including one whose original license application was dismissed.

KTFL 4 Flagstaff AZ: Granted CP 9/14/1988; began broadcasting under Program Test Authority in late Dec. 2000, licensed in late June 2001, signed off 6/1/2006; license canceled 6/22/2006.

KCPM 27 Grand Forks ND: Granted CP 1/5/2001; STA to broadcast 2/26/2003; licensed 7/16/2007; went off air 2/15/2008; license is still active.

KDDE/KEEF 68 Los Angeles CA: Granted CP 4/15/1983; began broadcasting under PTA as KDDE in late Feb. 1987, but was shut down by the FCC about two months later due to use of an antenna and antenna height at variance with their permit. The license app was dismissed 7/1/1987. The station tried again 6/10/1987 to apply for a license, this time as KEEF, and applied to change their broadcasting parameters at the same time, but none were granted and the station's right to operate was revoked in 1992 following other problems uncovered. (See Wikipedia article).
 
There was a listing in the Broadcasting Yearbook in the mid 70s for a ch. 43 in Syracuse, WONH (Onondaga Hill). And a friend told me he swears he saw color bars on that channel, w/ those calls, sometime in the early 80s. But a ch. 43 would not go on the air in Syracuse until at least the early 90s, then as a LP with a tower on a high rise on James St. Damned if I can remember the calls, but they picked up the UPN network when it started w/ Star Trek: Voyager in January 1995. I remember their video levels were way hot, causing "sync buzz" during certain scenes of the show.
 
The Chicago Federation of Labor held a CP for Channel 38. There were a few test but CFL sold the CP about the time they sold WCFL radio.
 
radiorob2.0 said:
The Chicago Federation of Labor held a CP for Channel 38. There were a few test but CFL sold the CP about the time they sold WCFL radio.
Click to expand...

WCFC tested as WCFL-TV for a brief time in 1976. By the time regular programming started, the new calls had been approved.
 
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