[PRCo] Re: More than you wanted to know about Pittsburgh TV

[Bob Rathke]

I believe that the channel shuffling occured mostly in the early years of
TV - 1948-52 - and that the channel adjustments were necessary as actual
broadcasting resulted in interference among stations.  It's somewhat amazing
that there was not more interference considering that the FCC plotted the
transmission locations for the new medium, using only 12 channels
nationwide, in the late 1940's before the first stations were even on the
air.

Most VHF stations were on the air in 1948-49, but Pittsburgh had the dubious
distinction of being the largest city in the U.S. to have only ONE
commercial VHF station channel until 1957 when channel 11 went on the air,
followed by channel 4 in 1958.  Allocation of channels 4 and 11 was held up
for years because there were at least four applicants for the two channels.
In the late 50's the applicants entered into to joint ownership agreements,
and the stations finally went on the air.

Pittsburgh has another TV channel quirk: UHF channels in a given city are
spaced in multiples of 6 MHz, thus Youngstown, Ohio stations were assigned
channels 21, 27 and 33.
Pittsburgh got 16, 22, 40 and 53 (it should have been 52).  I've never heard
an explantion for this.

And what happened to channel 1?  Before WWII, space was allocated for
channel 1, but by the late 40's, its frequency band was re-assigned to radio
stations, and it never happened.

Bob 4/23/04


----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Schneider" <fschnei at supernet.com>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 10:57 AM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: More than you wanted to know about Pittsburgh TV


> Yes guys, I know this has nothing to do with trolleys in Pittsburgh.  So
what!
> You'll find delete key over to the right.
>
> About the same time as that channel shuffle, WGAL TV in Lancaster changed
from
> channel 4 to 8, allegedly because of interference with 4 in Washington DC.
Was
> this, Bob, a common problem?  Did receivers get more powerful?  Were
> transmitters more powerful?  Were people out in the country buying sets
and
> complaining?  What did the shuffle take place?
>
> Bob Rathke wrote:
>
> > KDKA radio was in the Grant Building (where I worked) until around 1954
when
> > the station moved to Gateway 1.
> >
> > Since 1949, KDKA-TV (then WDTV, channel 3) had its stidios in the
Chamber of
> > Commerce Bldg.  It too moved to Gateway 1 around 1954, and became
KDKA-TV.
> > WDTV was owned by the DuMont Network and the station was sold to
> > Westinghouse in 1954.  Today, Bruce DuMont is director of the Broadcast
> > Museum in Chicago, and has a radio program, "Beyond the Beltway."
> >
> > Back in the late 1940's and early 1950's, WJAC-TV in Johnstown broadcast
on
> > channel 13.  In a major channel shuffle in the early 50's, WDTV went
from
> > channel 3 to 2, channel 3 went to Cleveland (KYW-TV), WJAC-TV went from
13
> > to 6, and channel 13 was assigned to Pittsburgh, although WQED didn't
take
> > over that channel until April 5, 1954.
> >
> > For about 18 months in 1954-55, Pittsburgh had TV stations on channel 16
> > (WENS) and 53 (WKJF), but most TV sets in that era couldn't receive UHF
> > broadcasts, and so the stations went off the air, and they didn't return
> > until the late 1960's when all TV sets were required to receive UHF
> > channels.
> >
> > And....UHF channels at that time went up to 83.  Now the highest UHF
channel
> > is 69.  What happened to channels 70-83?  That part of the broadcast
> > spectrum is now used for cell phone transmissions.  Does anyone out
there
> > still have a TV set capable of receiving channels 70-83?  If you do,
guess
> > what you can hear on channels 70-83....
> >
> > Bob 4/22/04
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Harold Geissenheimer" <transitmgr2 at earthlink.net>
> > To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> > Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 11:40 AM
> > Subject: [PRCo] Re: Wabash Terminal
> >
> > > Greetings
> > > A question?  Wasnt KDKA Radio in the Grant Building?
> > > I attended a radio show there once.   Harold Geissenheimer
> > RR
>
>
>