Two Connecticut TV Stations Now on the Empire State Building?

[Gregg.]

I live in North Jersey, near the Hudson River. I now can get WEDW 49 Stamford (Connecticut Public Television) and WZME 43 Bridgeport (Story TV, Me-TV, Me-TV+, Retro, Heart and EMLW Infomercials). According to WZME's Wikipedia page, the transmitter for both stations is on Booth Hill in Trumbull, Connecticut, and a secondary transmitter is on the Empire State Building.

That seems odd, having two transmitters, one of them on the ESB. So now I have over-the-air access to several PBS stations: WNET 13 in New York, WLIW 21 licensed to Long Island but with its transmitter on the World Trade Center, and now WEDW 49 with its transmitter on the ESB. Even though I am in New Jersey, the one PBS station I can't get is NJ PBS. The organization, now run by WNET, gave up its transmitter in Montclair as part of the 2017 spectrum repack, getting $138 million. Now its only North Jersey transmitter is in Warren (near Bound Brook) - too far away for me to pick it up.

I had heard NJ PBS was planning to also move to Manhattan, using the tower at the former Conde Nast Building in Times Square. But that never happened. I do have access to NJ PBS and its subchannel, NHK Japan, on my cable system.

 

[Greg Strickland]

A broadcast station's licensed "main" transmitter site may be located some distance from the community of license, provided this licensed "main" site produces the requires signal strength over the community of license.

Many FM broadcast stations use boosters that are on the main licensed frequency (aka co-channel). Boosters operate simultaneously with the licensed main site . Some stations have auxiliary antenna licenses that may be occasionally confused with the licensed main site. Auxiliary antennas are not intended to be used simultaneously with the licensed main site.

WEDW is a digital TV station and is licensed as a distributed transmitter system (DTS) license.
Specifically: Service Designation: DTS Digital Television (Distributed service -- multiple transmitter sites)

This means they may operate several transmitters within their licensed service area that act in a similar way as boosters. Because the signal is digital, boosters can be used with greater success than with analog FM boosters. In DTS the network of boosters are synchronized to produce the most seamless coverage within the service area.

Federal Register :: Request Access

www.ecfr.gov

This might sound familiar to some. Geo Broadcast Solutions offers a similar concept (Single Frequency Network) with their MaxxCasting™️ branded product. As I understand it, their product augments both the FM analog and digital portions of the broadcast station.

GEO Broadcast Solutions

GeoBroadcast Solutions' charter is to innovate and bring to market technologies that help radio broadcasters maximize their signal and grow revenues.

www.geobroadcastsolutions.com

Now, what if the analog portion was not augmented by the booster, only the two digital FM signals on the upper and lower sides of the center frequency? Would it then be possible for the system to be more aggressively used, becoming a digital FM version of the DTS distributed transmission system? Could be a regulatory issue, isn't the digital radio signal already up against the mask, so to speak?

I think over the air digital radio has a great present and future, provided all the constituents and stake holders can find common ground.