WDKY Tower

[radiorob2.0]

Wasn't Ch 62 LP sold to Daystar when Equity Broadcasting filled for Bankruptcy? As I understand it, the FCC has since deleted the license for the station.

I seem to remember something about this, too. Didn't someone also apply for....or obtain a now expired CP....to put up a Really HIGH POWER Channel 62 with a tall tower somewhere around Versailles or Lawrenceburg...probably in the last 10-15 years, or so?

There was a CP that placed the tower half way between Lexington and Louisville. I guess the goal was to serve both markets.

^^ I think so in the early 2000's?

I guess that is why WTVQ got off Channel 62 back in the 70's. Didn't WLEX try to put up a tower in Clark County and with a blowtorch of 5000 kW back in the early 90's?

Actually WTVQ moved to Channel 36 in June 1980.

There had been talk during the eighties about a common tower for TV and FM. The FM's really wanted it because of the pending downgrade of all three Class C's since their tower heights were below 1000 feet. WLEX needed height. I believe the plan was to build a 2000 foot tower but a location couldn't be found to satisfy the FAA.

 

[trapper12]

At one time there was a CP for a channel 20 in Lexington. It was on the books for several years but I think has since been deleted.

 

[jb_ky]

Yep... also a channel 24 and/or a channel 25 if I remember correctly. Would have been nice to have separate stations for the CW and My Network TV. Better HD.

 

[w9wi]

Yep... also a channel 24 and/or a channel 25 if I remember correctly. Would have been nice to have separate stations for the CW and My Network TV. Better HD.

I can't find any record of any of these. (including ch. 20) None of them would have been acceptable for full-power stations in the analog era: they would have been too close to WLEX's ch. 18 or WKYT's ch. 27. That, and they would have been far too close to WBXX ch. 20 Crossville, Tenn.; WKYU-TV ch. 24 Bowling Green; and WKAS ch. 25 Ashland. The channels were not allotted to Lexington or any nearby community -- that would have been a prerequisite for a full-power analog CP.

I don't see any record of any LP stations on those channels in Lexington either. There was a channel 20 CP in Corbin (which I suppose would have been bumped by WBXX) and one on ch. 24 in Louisville. (which I believe is still on as WKYI-CD)

 

[trapper12]

Type in Pappas Telecasting. This will take you to a page that has several stations listed on it including the channel 20 for Lexington, Ky. The cp has been deleted for several years. It was suppose to have been a WB affilliate but when WB and UPN merged that pretty well shot it down. If the station had been built it would have had to been directional due to WBXX in Crossville/Knoxville. A 5th commercial station in Lexington has never really been viable. WLKT-TV tried it, did not last a year on channel 62, WBLU-TV tried although on low power channel 62 and failed. I think Lexingtons proximity to Louisville, Knoxville, and Huntington, maybe ever the Tri-Cities may have something to do with a 5th station not being a commercial success. My opinion.

 

[w9wi]

Type in Pappas Telecasting. This will take you to a page that has several stations listed on it including the channel 20 for Lexington, Ky. The cp has been deleted for several years. It was suppose to have been a WB affilliate but when WB and UPN merged that pretty well shot it down. If the station had been built it would have had to been directional due to WBXX in Crossville/Knoxville. A 5th commercial station in Lexington has never really been viable. WLKT-TV tried it, did not last a year on channel 62, WBLU-TV tried although on low power channel 62 and failed. I think Lexingtons proximity to Louisville, Knoxville, and Huntington, maybe ever the Tri-Cities may have something to do with a 5th station not being a commercial success. My opinion.

I don't see anything in Kentucky either on Pappas' own site or on the Pappas Telecasting page on Wikipedia.

In the analog days, a channel couldn't be allotted unless a fully-spaced site existed. You could use a directional antenna to locate the transmitter at a short-spaced site, but a hypothetical fully-spaced site had to exist.

 

[radiorob2.0]

Type in Pappas Telecasting. This will take you to a page that has several stations listed on it including the channel 20 for Lexington, Ky. The cp has been deleted for several years. It was suppose to have been a WB affilliate but when WB and UPN merged that pretty well shot it down. If the station had been built it would have had to been directional due to WBXX in Crossville/Knoxville. A 5th commercial station in Lexington has never really been viable. WLKT-TV tried it, did not last a year on channel 62, WBLU-TV tried although on low power channel 62 and failed. I think Lexingtons proximity to Louisville, Knoxville, and Huntington, maybe ever the Tri-Cities may have something to do with a 5th station not being a commercial success. My opinion.

Market revenue is the factor, not the location. If Channel 62 had signed on prior to WDKY fate might have been different. The Channel 62 delay was due to a long fight over the allocation. The company that won I believe was called Family Broadcasting. They made an arrangement with the competing company, a religious outfit that was going to make Channel 62 all religion, to allow them a portion of the week's programming. When Channel 56 signed on the air there was potential for the market to support four commercial signals. When Channel 62 returned to the air WDKY had an almost three year head start and an affiliation with the new Fox network and WLKT was left with little as far as programming and revenue. Channel 62 ended abruptly one afternoon from lack of revenue, lots of technical problems and a lawsuit from the religious folks over breech of contract.

Keep in mind there is a fifth station in the market. If you include subchannels, CWKYT fills the void of a fifth station.

As far as Pappas, they've had CP all over the place. I believe it was Pappas that had the Channel 62 allocation with the antenna site between Lexington and Louisville. Pappas had a CP for a full market signal in Owensboro (Channel 48 I believe) but was never taken further than a construction permit.

 

[trapper12]

Type in Pappas Telecasting. This will take you to a page that has several stations listed on it including the channel 20 for Lexington, Ky. The cp has been deleted for several years. It was suppose to have been a WB affilliate but when WB and UPN merged that pretty well shot it down. If the station had been built it would have had to been directional due to WBXX in Crossville/Knoxville. A 5th commercial station in Lexington has never really been viable. WLKT-TV tried it, did not last a year on channel 62, WBLU-TV tried although on low power channel 62 and failed. I think Lexingtons proximity to Louisville, Knoxville, and Huntington, maybe ever the Tri-Cities may have something to do with a 5th station not being a commercial success. My opinion.

I don't see anything in Kentucky either on Pappas' own site or on the Pappas Telecasting page on Wikipedia.

In the analog days, a channel couldn't be allotted unless a fully-spaced site existed. You could use a directional antenna to locate the transmitter at a short-spaced site, but a hypothetical fully-spaced site had to exist.

Type in Papas Telecasting, Lexington Ky and it will take you to the page that has the channel 20 listed along with all the others. Here are the FCC numbers though, File Letter BPRM, File #20000717ADO, Facility ID 127414.

 

[trapper12]

Type in Pappas Telecasting. This will take you to a page that has several stations listed on it including the channel 20 for Lexington, Ky. The cp has been deleted for several years. It was suppose to have been a WB affilliate but when WB and UPN merged that pretty well shot it down. If the station had been built it would have had to been directional due to WBXX in Crossville/Knoxville. A 5th commercial station in Lexington has never really been viable. WLKT-TV tried it, did not last a year on channel 62, WBLU-TV tried although on low power channel 62 and failed. I think Lexingtons proximity to Louisville, Knoxville, and Huntington, maybe ever the Tri-Cities may have something to do with a 5th station not being a commercial success. My opinion.

Market revenue is the factor, not the location. If Channel 62 had signed on prior to WDKY fate might have been different. The Channel 62 delay was due to a long fight over the allocation. The company that won I believe was called Family Broadcasting. They made an arrangement with the competing company, a religious outfit that was going to make Channel 62 all religion, to allow them a portion of the week's programming. When Channel 56 signed on the air there was potential for the market to support four commercial signals. When Channel 62 returned to the air WDKY had an almost three year head start and an affiliation with the new Fox network and WLKT was left with little as far as programming and revenue. Channel 62 ended abruptly one afternoon from lack of revenue, lots of technical problems and a lawsuit from the religious folks over breech of contract.

Keep in mind there is a fifth station in the market. If you include subchannels, CWKYT fills the void of a fifth station.

As far as Pappas, they've had CP all over the place. I believe it was Pappas that had the Channel 62 allocation with the antenna site between Lexington and Louisville. Pappas had a CP for a full market signal in Owensboro (Channel 48 I believe) but was never taken further than a construction permit.

Market revenue may very well be a factor for a station but there can also be an overkill of stations and I live in such an area. 4 CBS, 3 ABC, 4 NBC, 3 Fox, 3 CW, 2MYTV, 2 METV, 4 PBS and 4 religious. There are as many points to this discussion as one can think of and all would be correct to a point. Who knows, Lexington may get another full power station one of these days. The call letters could be WCAT. Everyone would watch it then.

 

[jb_ky]

Ha! That or WBBN, WUKT, WEUK, or WBLU. ;D

Some good facts above! I know it won't happen, but I wish WKYT would fire up the channel 13 signal (old digital channel) and put the CW on it and brand it as the CW-13 so that people know what channel is actually was. It's still mounted on the side of their tower. If people knew the actual channel it was on and not 27, people would of had the right antenna picked up the station better instead of moving it to channel 36.

 

[w9wi]

Type in Pappas Telecasting. This will take you to a page that has several stations listed on it including the channel 20 for Lexington, Ky. The cp has been deleted for several years. It was suppose to have been a WB affilliate but when WB and UPN merged that pretty well shot it down. If the station had been built it would have had to been directional due to WBXX in Crossville/Knoxville. A 5th commercial station in Lexington has never really been viable. WLKT-TV tried it, did not last a year on channel 62, WBLU-TV tried although on low power channel 62 and failed. I think Lexingtons proximity to Louisville, Knoxville, and Huntington, maybe ever the Tri-Cities may have something to do with a 5th station not being a commercial success. My opinion.

I don't see anything in Kentucky either on Pappas' own site or on the Pappas Telecasting page on Wikipedia.

In the analog days, a channel couldn't be allotted unless a fully-spaced site existed. You could use a directional antenna to locate the transmitter at a short-spaced site, but a hypothetical fully-spaced site had to exist.

Type in Papas Telecasting, Lexington Ky and it will take you to the page that has the channel 20 listed along with all the others. Here are the FCC numbers though, File Letter BPRM, File #20000717ADO, Facility ID 127414.

Ah. There it is -- thanks!

It seems there is no record in the "facility" table for that Facility ID, which causes it to not come up either on CDBS Application Search or on the scripts I use to query my mirrored copy of the database.

It's a petition for rulemaking, filed in 2000, to change an *analog* channel assignment in Lexington to ch. 20. Seems strange anyone would file such a request for an analog change at that late date -- and it still seems to me such a thing would be unacceptable due to proximity to WLEX. Then again, Ion did throw a few proposals against the wall hoping (unsuccessfully) that they'd stick, so I suppose I can see Pappas doing the same thing..

 

[jb_ky]

Not to mention it wouldn't work with channel 21-WUPX in Frenchburg, 19-WBKI, and 22-WCPO in Cincy

 

[trapper12]

Ha! That or WBBN, WUKT, WEUK, or WBLU. ;D

Some good facts above! I know it won't happen, but I wish WKYT would fire up the channel 13 signal (old digital channel) and put the CW on it and brand it as the CW-13 so that people know what channel is actually was. It's still mounted on the side of their tower. If people knew the actual channel it was on and not 27, people would of had the right antenna picked up the station better instead of moving it to channel 36.

Sometimes I think WKYT is driven by vanity more than common sense. They claim and may have lost some viewers on the 13 due to poor signal. However the other 3 commercial plus KET are on UHF channels which would make things more simple to pick up.

 

[jb_ky]

True, considering Lexington was the only UHF market in the country that I know of... and WDKY was a very hard channel to get for me when it was on channel 4.

 

[radiorob2.0]

Ha! That or WBBN, WUKT, WEUK, or WBLU. ;D

Some good facts above! I know it won't happen, but I wish WKYT would fire up the channel 13 signal (old digital channel) and put the CW on it and brand it as the CW-13 so that people know what channel is actually was. It's still mounted on the side of their tower. If people knew the actual channel it was on and not 27, people would of had the right antenna picked up the station better instead of moving it to channel 36.

Sometimes I think WKYT is driven by vanity more than common sense. They claim and may have lost some viewers on the 13 due to poor signal. However the other 3 commercial plus KET are on UHF channels which would make things more simple to pick up.

Two factors are in play. Any established antennas in Lexington are UHF. A UHF antenna can pick up Channel 13 but not optimal; Channel 4 is way out of the question especially since the antennas are pointed to the old WLEX tower and to WKYT and WTVQ located next to each other. It is rare to see an antenna pointed to Clays Ferry back in the day. The other factor involves the new "DTV" antennas that are optimal for UHF, sorta work for high band VHF but not well and useless for low band VHF. The idea was to move TV service UHF but some operators decided staying on VHF was a good idea. A few though staying on low band VHF; WTVF Nashville and WPVI Philadelphia learned why that was a bad idea very quickly.

True, considering Lexington was the only UHF market in the country that I know of... and WDKY was a very hard channel to get for me when it was on channel 4.

Ft Wayne, South Bend, Fresno and Bakersfield are UHF only markets. The FCC tried to make Evansville an all UHF market but WTVW was able to tell the FCC to pound salt.

 

[ADAMKY]

Ha! That or WBBN, WUKT, WEUK, or WBLU. ;D

... I know it won't happen, but I wish WKYT would fire up the channel 13 signal (old digital channel) and put the CW on it and brand it as the CW-13 so that people know what channel is actually was. It's still mounted on the side of their tower.

Not easily done.

The re-allocation of WKYT to channel 13 was made possible by reducing the licensed power of co-owned WBKO-13 in Bowling Green. After WKYT abandoned the VHF frequency WBKO received a power increase as did WTHR-13 in Indianapolis. WKYT’s old channel 13 transmitter is awaiting installation at WBKO to effect the power increase.

-Walt

 

[BobOnTheJob]

and WDKY was a very hard channel to get for me when it was on channel 4.

I heard stories that when channel 4 was in use, lightning static caused the signal to pixel out at 4 miles. A UHF LPTV had to have had better coverage than that channel 4 did.

 

[KR4BD]

and WDKY was a very hard channel to get for me when it was on channel 4.

I heard stories that when channel 4 was in use, lightning static caused the signal to pixel out at 4 miles. A UHF LPTV had to have had better coverage than that channel 4 did.

The "reception problems" with WDKY DT when they were on Channel 4 was due to the fact that virtually NO ONE in Lexington was set-up to receive Low-Band VHF signals. I live about 10 miles from the WDKY tower and NEVER, EVER had a problem receiving them on Ch4...but then again, I have a VHF TV antenna up 50 feet which I formerly used to watch WAVE Ch3 (analog) out of Louisville. When WAVE decided to ditch their LaGrange tower and go to UHF Ch47, I lost them FOREVER. However, I can now watch WHAS-DT on Ch11 and WBNA-DT on Ch8 with NO PROBLEMS Whatsoever, here in Lexington. IT'S ALL IN USING THE RIGHT ANTENNA.

 

[jb_ky]

I'd say you also get WKRC-12 as well or WYMT-12? What kind of antenna do you use?

I couldn't get channel 4 in Georgetown when I lived there, but then again I didn't have the proper antenna. I would move it near a window on NFL Sundays and it came in, but you had not better use the vacuum cleaner or anything like that.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

and WDKY was a very hard channel to get for me when it was on channel 4.

I heard stories that when channel 4 was in use, lightning static caused the signal to pixel out at 4 miles. A UHF LPTV had to have had better coverage than that channel 4 did.

The "reception problems" with WDKY DT when they were on Channel 4 was due to the fact that virtually NO ONE in Lexington was set-up to receive Low-Band VHF signals. I live about 10 miles from the WDKY tower and NEVER, EVER had a problem receiving them on Ch4...but then again, I have a VHF TV antenna up 50 feet which I formerly used to watch WAVE Ch3 (analog) out of Louisville. When WAVE decided to ditch their LaGrange tower and go to UHF Ch47, I lost them FOREVER. However, I can now watch WHAS-DT on Ch11 and WBNA-DT on Ch8 with NO PROBLEMS Whatsoever, here in Lexington. IT'S ALL IN USING THE RIGHT ANTENNA.

Same here on WHAS 11...at 70 air miles north, it's perfect all the time (as is WAVE/WDRB/WLKY and WMYO). When I scanned just now, I saw no trace of WBNA DT8 (nor have I ever) but WJYL DT16 and WBKI DT19 were there in spite of it being a rainy day.