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Basic info about TV in the US

post #1 of 68
6/2/08 at 3:00pm
Thread Starter 
Hello, I'm Italian I've always loved USA , we can pretty much say it's my dream.

Finally, I'm going to visit my relatives this September which live in Wildwood, NJ. My major interest is US television system (and tv series) and of course HD (which here it's still so distant to be free), and I would like to ask some questions.

1) what local station can you receive from Wildwood? I've seen that none of the main networks has stations there, can you get a good reception from Philadelphia?

2) What about the codecs? Do they use mpeg-2 or h.264 for video? Do they use AC-3 for both stereo and 5.1? What bitrates?

3) For what I have understood local affiliates get hd channels from SAT right? So why don't they offer free local channels from SAT with 100% coverage?

4) Does every zone receive all the HD channels? I mean, could it happen that one city doesn't receive ABC or THE CW for example?

5) Are the bitrate and resolution decided by the location affiliate or it's international?

6) What do ABC FOX NBC CBS CW broadcast during the day?

7) What about analog TV? Are SD & HD multicast channels in the same multiplex? How long does HD broadcasting exist? I remember that Everwood season 3 (2003) was in HD.

8) Well, I don't know if my relatives own a HD ready TV with ATSC HD tuner (I hope so) or HD sat/cable but I was wondering how common is now HD in houses. I mean is still there a lot of people using SD and analog ? What's more diffused OTA or not free cable?


Thanks everyone. Bye
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post #2 of 68
6/2/08 at 3:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Sandro- View Post

1) what local station can you receive from Wildwood? I've seen that none of the main networks has stations there, can you get a good reception from Philadelphia?

I don't know the answer to this one.

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2) What about the codecs? Do they use mpeg-2 or h.264 for video? Do they use AC-3 for both stereo and 5.1? What bitrates?

ATSC is 19.2 Mbps, MPEG-2, AC-3 sound in either DD2.0 or DD5.1. Sound is usually 384 Kbps or 448 Kbps but some stations lower it during local programming (I do not know why).

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3) For what I have understood local affiliates get hd channels from SAT right? So why don't they offer free local channels from SAT with 100% coverage?

Remember that the U.S. is a huge country. Historically networks have had affiliated stations in the many markets spread all over the U.S. The local stations are independent (except for the few that are owned by networks) and add the networks' programming to their local programming. That's how the system started and it continues today. We want stations to be local to our communities instead of being identical network franchises like McDonald's. Stations make a lot of money from their local news broadcasts and sports. The agreements the networks have with the affiliates prevent them from bypassing the local stations by broadcasting directly to the viewers.

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4) Does every zone receive all the HD channels? I mean, could it happen that one city doesn't receive ABC or THE CW for example?

Some areas don't have the CW in HD and broadcast it on a subchannel of another station. That's one example. There are some other rare examples of networks not broadcast in HD in some areas but most areas have them all in HD now.

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5) Are the bitrate and resolution decided by the location affiliate or it's international?

FOX's system controls the bit rate from the network end. All the other stations reencode the feed to whatever bit rate they want.

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6) What do ABC FOX NBC CBS CW broadcast during the day?

The original Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS) broadcast some soap operas but syndicated talk shows (not HD) are popular on most stations during the day. There are also reruns of old shows and a lot of other stuff that isn't very good.

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7) What about analog TV? Are SD & HD multicast channels in the same multiplex? How long does HD broadcasting exist? I remember that Everwood season 3 (2003) was in HD.

NTSC and ATSC are broadcast on separate channels. Every station broadcasting in digital in the country had to purchase and build a second transmitter for DTV. HD goes way back to the late 90's but it was several years before we expected shows to be in HD.

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8) Well, I don't know if my relatives own a HD ready TV with ATSC HD tuner (I hope so) or HD sat/cable but I was wondering how common is now HD in houses. I mean is still there a lot of people using SD and analog ? What's more diffused OTA or not free cable?

Looking around my office I'd say about a quarter of the people around here have HD. Most people are still watching analog television on cable. OTA reception is much less common here. Many people falsely believe that acceptable OTA reception is impossible where they live.
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post #3 of 68
6/2/08 at 3:37pm
Unless your relatives have cable, satellite or a very good outdoor antenna with a pre-amp, it's going to very difficult to pick up stations out of Philly. There is an NBC affiliate based out of Wildwood (actually the studios are in nearby Linwood) that you should be able to pick up no problem.
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post #4 of 68
6/2/08 at 5:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Sandro- View Post

8) Well, I don't know if my relatives own a HD ready TV with ATSC HD tuner (I hope so) or HD sat/cable but I was wondering how common is now HD in houses. I mean is still there a lot of people using SD and analog ? What's more diffused OTA or not free cable?

Analog pay cable predominates here. I'm surprised at all the analog CRT's still in use. It is somewhat rare to see more than 1 widescreen TV in a house and even rarer to have any hooked up to an HD source (antenna/cable or sat). The opinion at large seems to be that 4:3 stretched to 16:9 widescreen = HD. It has been very hard to break this thinking despite the efforts of many of us on this board. Seeing a 1080p screen hooked up to an analog cable box when they can easily get OTA HD just makes me sad.

OTA is in use by about 12%-15%, but it varies widely by location. e.g. New York is 4.8% OTA, but Los Angeles is 17% OTA. Where I live (South Orange County, in between LA and San Diego) it's about 0.5-1% OTA. It seems that most don't even think about trying OTA anymore. Of the small percent that do use OTA, I'd guess about 95% receive only analog signals.

I was surprised to learn that some countries, such as Germany, are mostly free cable. How can cable be free? I would be curious to know more about the Italian system if you don't mind me sending you a message. Grazie!
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post #5 of 68
6/2/08 at 6:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Falcon_77 View Post

Seeing a 1080p screen hooked up to an analog cable box when they can easily get OTA HD just makes me sad.

A few months ago a coworker bought a new HDTV. He doesn't have cable there so he hooked up a UHF antenna. When it scanned it found all of the analog stations but none of the digital stations. I gave him a list of DTV channel numbers to try and every one worked. It immediately recognized the stations with their x-1 names and he had perfect digital reception. All he had to do was manually enter every single station! If he didn't have a list of channel numbers to enter, he would have assumed real HDTV wasn't available OTA.
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post #6 of 68
6/2/08 at 7:07pm
Thread Starter 
First of all thanks to every one for answering .

This is really interesting for me because I'm discovery an all new world.

@scowl

Mpeg-2 is not so good for using HD so I guess they will have to use the entire channel? Why isn't h.264 used?

About local network I guess that's a nice thing but if OTA is not so diffused how are you going to see these local news broadcasts and sports?

But I don't understand the national network's local affiliates "become" national during shows at night and then back to local with other name and company or it's always controlled by ABC (for example) in some way?
Where do I get a list of all the local networks of every state?

@StudioTech

This sucks Maybe NJ only uses cable then If go to ABC.com it says that NJ is Served by Pennsylvania and New York. Is that technically possible?


@Falcon_77

That's weird for me to know I thought that all those stations in every state were the main system!! So you're saying that American people prefer to pay cable instead of free antenna? Why? What's the most used cable provider? I guess that cable providers don't only basically offer the local channels you can get for free via OTA but also HBO, TNT, TBS....am I right?

If analog cable predominates there, what is going to happen on 2009 with the switch off to those people?

About Italy...well you're going to be surprised more now. In Italy cable DOESN'T EXIST I would say that's the only developed country in Europe. Also Switzerland is all cabled.

EVERY house has antenna, pay SAT is also diffused with SKY company which has monopoly in "sat world".
OTA as I said is the most used system and digital terrestrial TV (DVB-T) was introduced in 2004, considering the restricted area compared to USA we don't have a local network reality, there is indeed a duopoly in OTA formed by RAI (state network) and Mediaset (commercial network) and we don't seem to exit this situation soon.
According to me DVB-T here sucks! Every channel is SD MPEG-2 (544/704/720 x 576 mostly) at 2-4 Mbit (too much compressed) and 90% of channels' sound is 128kbit mpeg-1 layer 2 which is unlistenable for me and the sad thing is that people don't complain! The reason is that for "us" that's the standard. Even the new pay per view via DVB-T is in the same quality situation and guess what? It's selling a lot!

We don't know what 16:9 or 5.1 are on tv! Only from March SKY (sat) started to use 16:9 on 4 channels and they promoted that like they was going to do something so unique in the world -.- . HD also started on SKY with 4 useless channels indeed no one has this package.

As you can read Italian TV is really bad, that's one of the reason why I'm so fascinated of USA
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post #7 of 68
6/2/08 at 7:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Sandro- View Post

Mpeg-2 is not so good for using HD so I guess they will have to use the entire channel? Why isn't h.264 used?

H264 didn't exist back in 1996 when the ATSC standard was set.

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But I don't understand the national network's local affiliates "become" national during shows at night and then back to local with other name and company or it's always controlled by ABC (for example) in some way?
Where do I get a list of all the local networks of every state?

Basically, the stations air local news and buy rights to programming from other companies. Then at night, they retransmit the network programming from the satellite. In my area, the local ABC station brands as "ABC 13" but the local CBS station as "WDBJ 7." It's up to the station how they brand themselves.

As far as a list of TV stations, I run a website for that. =)

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php

I'm missing some data which you'll probably notice, but the important stuff that you want is probably there.

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That's weird for me to know I thought that all those stations in every state were the main system!! So you're saying that American people prefer to pay cable instead of free antenna? Why? What's the most used cable provider? I guess that cable providers don't only basically offer the local channels you can get for free via OTA but also HBO, TNT, TBS....am I right?

Exactly. People pay for cable because of the added choice, but also because of how much noise and interference you can get from an antenna. With cable, there's no worrying about how it's set up and so on.

As far as the most used provider... there's no competition in most cases. Each area has one cable company that provides cable service to residents. Comcast, Time Warner, Charter, and Cox are some of the big names. There are a few exceptions here and there, but the norm is a single provider.

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If analog cable predominates there, what is going to happen on 2009 with the switch off to those people?

The analog shut off is only for antenna stations. Cable can continue to operate as is. If the provider wants to switch to digital, they can provide boxes to customers.

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About Italy...well you're going to be surprised more now. In Italy cable DOESN'T EXIST I would say that's the only developed country in Europe. Also Switzerland is all cabled.

EVERY house has antenna, pay SAT is also diffused with SKY company which has monopoly in "sat world".
OTA as I said is the most used system and digital terrestrial TV (DVB-T) was introduced in 2004, considering the restricted area compared to USA we don't have a local network reality, there is indeed a duopoly in OTA formed by RAI (state network) and Mediaset (commercial network) and we don't seem to exit this situation soon.
According to me DVB-T here sucks! Every channel is SD MPEG-2 (544/704/720 x 576 mostly) at 2-4 Mbit (too much compressed) and 90% of channels' sound is 128kbit mpeg-1 layer 2 which is unlistenable for me and the sad thing is that people don't complain! The reason is that for "us" that's the standard. Even the new pay per view via DVB-T is in the same quality situation and guess what? It's selling a lot!

We don't know what 16:9 or 5.1 are on tv! Only from March SKY (sat) started to use 16:9 on 4 channels and they promoted that like they was going to do something so unique in the world -.- . HD also started on SKY with 4 useless channels indeed no one has this package.

As you can read Italian TV is really bad, that's one of the reason why I'm so fascinated of USA

Very fascinating stuff. I've heard a lot about Sky but not about antenna TV in Europe. You may not know the answer to this, but does Italy have a bunch of little transmitters for its antenna TV stations or a few very powerful transmitters like the US?

- Trip
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post #8 of 68
6/2/08 at 8:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Sandro- View Post

Mpeg-2 is not so good for using HD so I guess they will have to use the entire channel? Why isn't h.264 used?

About local network I guess that's a nice thing but if OTA is not so diffused how are you going to see these local news broadcasts and sports?

But I don't understand the national network's local affiliates "become" national during shows at night and then back to local with other name and company or it's always controlled by ABC (for example) in some way?
Where do I get a list of all the local networks of every state?

The ATSC broadcast standard was chosen and locked in some 11 years ago when h.264 or Mpeg-4 did not yet exist (or did not exist beyond paper and early prototypes). If the US was setting a new digital broadcast standard now, they would have selected mpeg-4/h.264.

I think you will find the national broadcast system in the US to work very differently than in Europe. Most local affiliates are owned by other companies. The major networks own only a few stations outright. The affiliate contracts with the network to carry the network programming which is provided part of the day (AM morning shows, daytime soaps), prime time (8 to 11 PM), late night (11:35 PM to 1 AM or later). Outside of that, the local station will provide local news they produce themselves (or with a sister station) and syndicated programming. The major commercial broadcast networks in the US are ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox (aka the big four); smaller nets with HD are CW & My Network; non-commercial stations are mostly PBS (Public Broadcast System); other networks are Univision (Spanish language).

Most people now subscribe to cable or satellite service providers. They provide the local stations as well as the many (many) national cable channels such as ESPN, HBO, TNT, USA, TBS, Sci-Fi. It is a very complex system we have evolved here in the US split between the broadcast nets and the cable networks and the government regulatory structure that presides over it.

From Wildwood, NJ, your relatives may also get the several broadcast stations in Salisbury, MD. Salisbury is a small market with only CBS, ABC, and PBS full power stations, but I think they all broadcast a digital HD sub-channel. You should check Falcon_77's spreadsheet at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=823166 to get a sense of how the broadcast stations are organized by city or market. For station coverage maps and what stations you may be able to get in Wildwood, try www.tvfool.com.
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post #9 of 68
6/2/08 at 9:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Sandro- View Post

@StudioTech

This sucks Maybe NJ only uses cable then If go to ABC.com it says that NJ is Served by Pennsylvania and New York. Is that technically possible?

Yes, the state is large enough where the northern half is served by the ABC station in New York and the southern half is served by the one in Philadelphia. Don't feel bad though. Because of where your family lives, I would guess that they more than likely have cable.
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post #10 of 68
6/3/08 at 6:29am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trip in VA View Post

H264 didn't exist back in 1996 when the ATSC standard was set.



Basically, the stations air local news and buy rights to programming from other companies. Then at night, they retransmit the network programming from the satellite. In my area, the local ABC station brands as "ABC 13" but the local CBS station as "WDBJ 7." It's up to the station how they brand themselves.

As far as a list of TV stations, I run a website for that. =)



I'm missing some data which you'll probably notice, but the important stuff that you want is probably there.



Exactly. People pay for cable because of the added choice, but also because of how much noise and interference you can get from an antenna. With cable, there's no worrying about how it's set up and so on.

As far as the most used provider... there's no competition in most cases. Each area has one cable company that provides cable service to residents. Comcast, Time Warner, Charter, and Cox are some of the big names. There are a few exceptions here and there, but the norm is a single provider.



The analog shut off is only for antenna stations. Cable can continue to operate as is. If the provider wants to switch to digital, they can provide boxes to customers.



Very fascinating stuff. I've heard a lot about Sky but not about antenna TV in Europe. You may not know the answer to this, but does Italy have a bunch of little transmitters for its antenna TV stations or a few very powerful transmitters like the US?

- Trip


Thank you this is really cool, I've always wanted to see a web site with these information! What's the meaning of all those letters in the network name?
How does 1080i 12mbit mpeg-2 look like?

I see that a lot of frequency contains only 2 channels or 1 HD channel...well this is unthinkable in Italy, they will go with 6-7 channels in the same mux instead of buying other licenses to improve quality!
I would that Italy uses the same system as USA, we have a few powerful stations....about 2 stations per region.


If cable can remain analog means that a lot of people doesn't want to switch to digital , why would you prefer analog to HD digital channels if you can choose ?

Anyway viewing some screencap it seems to me that SD channels get the feed from analogic source and HD is an upscaled SD source, is that right? Primetime shows are true HD for sure.
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post #11 of 68
6/3/08 at 6:31am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by afiggatt View Post

The ATSC broadcast standard was chosen and locked in some 11 years ago when h.264 or Mpeg-4 did not yet exist (or did not exist beyond paper and early prototypes). If the US was setting a new digital broadcast standard now, they would have selected mpeg-4/h.264.

I think you will find the national broadcast system in the US to work very differently than in Europe. Most local affiliates are owned by other companies. The major networks own only a few stations outright. The affiliate contracts with the network to carry the network programming which is provided part of the day (AM morning shows, daytime soaps), prime time (8 to 11 PM), late night (11:35 PM to 1 AM or later). Outside of that, the local station will provide local news they produce themselves (or with a sister station) and syndicated programming. The major commercial broadcast networks in the US are ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox (aka the big four); smaller nets with HD are CW & My Network; non-commercial stations are mostly PBS (Public Broadcast System); other networks are Univision (Spanish language).

Most people now subscribe to cable or satellite service providers. They provide the local stations as well as the many (many) national cable channels such as ESPN, HBO, TNT, USA, TBS, Sci-Fi. It is a very complex system we have evolved here in the US split between the broadcast nets and the cable networks and the government regulatory structure that presides over it.

From Wildwood, NJ, your relatives may also get the several broadcast stations in Salisbury, MD. Salisbury is a small market with only CBS, ABC, and PBS full power stations, but I think they all broadcast a digital HD sub-channel. You should check Falcon_77's spreadsheet at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=823166 to get a sense of how the broadcast stations are organized by city or market. For station coverage maps and what stations you may be able to get in Wildwood, try www.tvfool.com.

I understand...is there any chance to introduce the new codec in the near future as a standard?
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post #12 of 68
6/3/08 at 7:09am
Impossible without throwing out all the currently deployed gear. And as large as the USA is - you don't do this casually. Heck we're just now getting to the point of shutting down NTSC broadcasting - that standard has been around 50+ years, with some backwards compatible enhancements added along the way (color being the most notable). Yet - you can can still take a 20 year old black and white TV and it can watch current NTSC broadcasts - and with a converter box, even the new ATSC ones.
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post #13 of 68
6/3/08 at 8:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Sandro- View Post

I understand...is there any chance to introduce the new codec in the near future as a standard?

No.
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post #14 of 68
6/3/08 at 9:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Sandro- View Post

What's the meaning of all those letters in the network name?

You can google them and find out their entire names. I googled "RAI television" and found "Radiotelevisione Italiana".

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How does 1080i 12mbit mpeg-2 look like?

It depends. Film sources can look pretty good, especially if the encoder uses the MPEG telecine flags (the frames are effectively 24p in this case). Full 60 fields per second looks terrible at 12 Mpbs and is marginally acceptable at 15 Mbps with a modern encoder.

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I see that a lot of frequency contains only 2 channels or 1 HD channel...well this is unthinkable in Italy, they will go with 6-7 channels in the same mux instead of buying other licenses to improve quality!

In the U.S. local stations compete against each other. They don't share frequencies unless two stations have the same owner. This is why some areas don't have certain networks in HD: it's cheaper to put the SD version of the second network on a subchannel of the digital station they already built instead of building another transmitter just for the second network.

Some stations do share towers (in many areas, the ideal location for towers is small) but I'm sure one station is leasing it from another.

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If cable can remain analog means that a lot of people doesn't want to switch to digital , why would you prefer analog to HD digital channels if you can choose ?

Why choose? Most people have seen nothing but analog television their whole lives. It looks fine. They can see people's faces, the color is reasonably accurate, and they can figure out what's going on. Oh sure, DVDs look better but not that much better. Even the average projected movie projected in theaters is a blurry mess, barely better than DVD resolution. Few people have any idea what good video looks like.

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Anyway viewing some screencap it seems to me that SD channels get the feed from analogic source and HD is an upscaled SD source, is that right? Primetime shows are true HD for sure.

All stations get digital feeds (some syndicated shows may still be on analog feeds). For SD material, HD stations usually upscale an SD source at the station although in some cases the network will upscale it themselves and put that on their HD feed and it's up to the station to choose which one they transmit.
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post #15 of 68
6/4/08 at 2:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Sandro- View Post

I understand...is there any chance to introduce the new codec in the near future as a standard?

It has already been introduced for Direct Broadcast Satellite HD, there are two paid services here that are considered an alternative to cable. They carry most of the same national channels as cable plus local channels on spot beams to most US markets in SD but only a few of the major markets in HD. Cable companies will probably introduce the new codec in the next few years. There's a proposed mobile standard that uses it but it's definitely not HD and will use up some of the bandwidth of local stations if they choose to use it.
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post #16 of 68
6/4/08 at 5:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Sandro- View Post

What's the meaning of all those letters in the network name?

For the OTA broadcast networks?

ABC = American Broadcasting Company
NBC = National Broadcasting Company
CBS = Columbia Broadcasting System
(These are the old "big three" networks, dating back to the 1940s-1950s)

FOX is not an abbreviation. The company's name is Fox. It started in the 1980s, I think.

CW (actually "The CW") is an odd beast. It was formed a couple of years ago by combining two small networks that were originally formed in the mid 1990s. One was partly owned by CBS and the other was owned by Warner Brothers studios. In the new name, the C represents CBS and the W represents Warner, but CW isn't an abbreviation for an actual name.

MyNetworkTV (some people abbreviate it MNT, others use MyNet) was also created a couple of years ago, at the same time as the CW, basically to provide a network for stations that didn't become part of the CW. There's also some corporate politics involved.

The CW and MNT are both very weak financially. Both of them have stations in most parts of the USA, but in many places one or both of them does not provide HD.

Finally, PBS = Public Broadcasting System. These are non-commercial "educational" stations that receive support from state and federal government, and from donations by viewers. I think most states have a public agency that operates most or all the PBS stations in that state. I don't know if this is true in New Jersey.

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How does 1080i 12mbit mpeg-2 look like?

In South Carolina, where I live, the PBS stations have 1 HD (1080i) and 2 SD subchannels, so the HD subchannel is probably around 10 Mbps. With stationary or slow-moving subjects (talk shows, nature shows, etc.) the result is actually rather good, but if there is significant motion, the macroblocking is very noticeable.

One of the CBS stations that I can receive used to carry only a HD subchannel, using the full 19 Mbps available in its digital channel. With fast-motion material (e.g. football) I could clearly see the difference between this station and another CBS station that also carries a weather subchannel which uses some of the 19 Mbps. The second station's HD signal probably wasn't even as low as 12 Mbps, probably more like 15 Mbps.
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post #17 of 68
6/4/08 at 5:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtbell View Post

FOX is not an abbreviation. The company's name is Fox. It started in the 1980s, I think.

It actually comes from the movie studio 20th Century FOX from which it was formed.
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post #18 of 68
6/5/08 at 12:03pm
Thread Starter 
Hi, i was talking about local station names actually.

You should see 12Mbit h.264
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post #19 of 68
6/5/08 at 12:48pm
UPN was United Paramount Network. ION is the new name of PAX. PAX comes from the name of the owners, Paxson. I have no idea where the name ION comes from.
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post #20 of 68
6/5/08 at 1:21pm
To answer a few questions....

Why don't more Americans use antennas? In the 50s through the 70s, people did. But most people switched over to cable in the 80s. Most Americans prefer to pay a monthly fee, rather than installing a high performance antenna system. During the 80s, "cable networks" became available. There were 2 ways to get those networks: 1. Spend a few thousand to have 12' dish installed in your back hard. 2. Pay a few bucks every month to the cable company.


In the mid 1990s, Direct TV and Dish Network introduced mini-dish systems which became very popular, and interest in OTA TV was somewhat revived (since the mini dish systems didn't carry local channels at the time). Our neighborhood was built in the mid 1990s, and half the houses have antennas, and all have had satellite TV at one time or another.

There's been a significant revival in antennas with the introduction of digital TV, and with the coming recession, I wouldn't be surprised if that trend continues.

I agree with Scowl. Most people don't know what good video looks like. I still can't believe that theaters are running 35MM film. We got a new theater in town, and it's got digital projection. It looks so much better than film. No flicker, no dust and specks, no graininess.

People here also don't know what good audio sounds like, either. That's another ball of wax

Station name meanings:
In the US, the call letters go something like this. All stations (radio and TV) have a four letter call letter. East of the Mississippi river, they all start with W. West of the Mississippi, they all start with K. The three letters after that may or may not mean anything. For example, a local TV station has the call letters WUCU. Last I knew, that didn't stand for anything. Another local station is KMSP, standing for "Minneapolis Saint Paul.

Stations all my refer to themselves as ABC 19, or FOX 47. The number is almost always their analog channel number.
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post #21 of 68
6/5/08 at 4:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by n4yqt View Post

WB - Warner Brothers, UPN - Universal Paramont Network, PAX ION are other networks.

WB (actually "The WB") and UPN don't exist any more. They merged to form the CW. Since most areas had both a WB and a UPN station, and only one could join the CW, that was part of the reason MyNetworkTV was created... to provide a network for the stations that were left out of the CW.

I forgot about ION ("i"). There aren't any of those in my area.

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All stations (radio and TV) have a four letter call letter. East of the Mississippi river, they all start with W. West of the Mississippi, they all start with K.

There are a few exceptions: KDKA in Pittsburgh, KYW in Philadelphia, and perhaps others. They date back to the very early days when all stations' call letters began with K.
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post #22 of 68
6/5/08 at 7:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtbell View Post

There are a few exceptions: KDKA in Pittsburgh, KYW in Philadelphia, and perhaps others. They date back to the very early days when all stations' call letters began with K.

There are W west as well, like 10 radio stations in Iowa.

But all stations never started with K. Since 1913 the USA had KD through KZ and anything starting with W for call signs. At first when the K/W split was the west Texas border, then in 1923 the Mississippi River (Louisiana and Minnesota presented some issues).

KDKA was named during a lapse of this policy. Most exceptions are in the west with W when the split line later moved east. K to the east were made by various lapses.
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post #23 of 68
6/6/08 at 5:40am
The original K/W scheme started with maritime wireless.

From Mystique of the Three Letter Calls web site:
With the adoption by the United States, in 1912, of an act to regulate radio stations, call letter assignments became formalized under federal authority. Under international agreement unique initial letters were allotted among the various nations. The 1914 edition of Radio Stations of the United States records the contemporary practices for allocating calls for sea and commercial land stations, which at this time were few enough so that all could be given three-letter calls:

The call letters assigned to the United States are all combinations (676) beginning with the letter N and all (676) beginning with the letter W, and all combinations (598) from KDA to KZZ, inclusive. [NOTE: KAA-KCZ was allocated to Germany at this time, and was not assigned to the United States until 1929.] The total number of international calls is thus 1,950, and these are reserved for Government stations and stations open to public and limited commercial service. All combinations beginning with the letter N are reserved for Government stations and in addition the combinations from WUA to WVZ and WXA to WZZ are reserved for the stations of the Army of the United States.

The combinations KDA to KZZ, with a few exceptions, are reserved for ship stations on the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico and for land stations on the Pacific coast. The combinations beginning with W (except WUA to WVZ and WXA to WZZ as already indicated) are reserved, with a few exceptions, for ship stations on the Pacific and Great Lakes and for land stations on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and in the Great Lakes region.

Notice the policy was that calls for ocean-going ship stations started with a different letter than the land stations they communicated with: in the West ships received W-- calls and land stations were assigned K--, while the reverse was true in the East, with K-- ship calls and W-- land calls. (NOTE: The assignment of W and K to the United States appears to have been completely arbitrary--the letters have no particular significance. N, however, had been commonly used by the U.S. Navy since November, 1909).

Amateur and Special Land stations fell into a separate callsign scheme. In fact, they did not qualify for "international" calls, and the International Bureau at Berne was not notified of their existence.



The less numerous land stations continued to receive three-letter calls, as turnover provided a reserve pool. Actually "turnover" is in some cases a euphemism. In the July, 1928 Radio Broadcast magazine, Broadcast Station Calls With a Past by William Fenwick reviewed a few land stations, including broadcasters WSB Atlanta and KLZ Denver, which received calls that became available with the demise of the ships that had used them. Because superstitious seafarers objected to being issued the calls "used by that ship which went down with all hands last month", these "tainted" calls were quietly issued to unsinkable land stations.

Showing partiality to vowels, the next major blocks drawn upon for ship stations were four letter KI--, KO--, and KU-- calls. After exhausting the vowels, and with KA-- to KC-- not yet assigned to the United States, the first available consonant, KD--, was drafted for ships beginning June 1920. At this point an anomaly occurred. The Bureau, perhaps caught up in a burst of egalitarianism, began assigning the last of the KU--, and the new KD-- calls to most stations, whether land or sea. The result, on October 27, 1920, was that a new Westinghouse station in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, KDKA, was sandwiched between the ships Montgomery City (KDJZ) and Eastern Sword (KDKB). The "KD-- for everyone" policy continued until April, 1921, when the original three-letter land station policy was reinstated. This meant that, in May, 1921, when the second Westinghouse broadcast station, WJZ in Newark, New Jersey (now WABC, New York City) was authorized, the original call policy had been restored. Much speculation has been made about the unique status of KDKA's call, but this uniqueness actually is just a fluke, due to the fact that no other surviving broadcaster was licenced during this short anomaly. Had KDKA been licenced a few months earlier or later it most likely would have gotten a three-letter W call like everyone else.

[NOTE: two other land stations licenced during this anomaly, KDPM Cleveland, Ohio, and KDPT San Diego, California, both originally non-broadcasting service stations, later transferred to the broadcast service but were eventually deleted.]

http://earlyradiohistory.us/3myst.htm is a great website for the history of the 3 letter calls.
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post #24 of 68
6/6/08 at 7:15am
To answer the OP's question;
http://www.2150.com/broadcast/defaul...=Show+Stations

He is 51 miles from Atlantic City/Camden, 56 miles from Salisbury MD. and 76 miles from Philly. Except for Salisbury which is SW, all of the other stations are north.
To keep things interesting there is a NBC afilate 10 miles away in the same direction of Atlantic City/Camden which means a preamp is out of the question.

foxeng; very interesting post. I didn't know the K/W line was anywhere other then the Miss. river.
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post #25 of 68
6/6/08 at 7:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by n4yqt View Post

Bring back the Dumont Network!

Great network, I remember it well (actually not, although I probably had seen something on it, they had wrestling).

A some time it was partners with Paramount studios with their first venture into TV.

Jackie Gleason, Ted Mack got their tv start there.
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post #26 of 68
6/7/08 at 3:05am
Thread Starter 
Great work! I'm learning a lot!

About cable, can you hook up it to every tv in the house like antenna or it's like SAT that can be only hooked to a TV at one time?

Is what you receive on cable free? I mean do you need a card or something?
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post #27 of 68
6/7/08 at 3:07am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by videobruce View Post

To answer the OP's question;
http://www.2150.com/broadcast/defaul...=Show+Stations

He is 51 miles from Atlantic City/Camden, 56 miles from Salisbury MD. and 76 miles from Philly. Except for Salisbury which is SW, all of the other stations are north.
To keep things interesting there is a NBC afilate 10 miles away in the same direction of Atlantic City/Camden which means a preamp is out of the question.

foxeng; very interesting post. I didn't know the K/W line was anywhere other then the Miss. river.

You're saying that I can receive only NBC OTA?
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post #28 of 68
6/7/08 at 4:36am
Quote:


About cable, can you hook up it to every tv in the house like antenna or it's like SAT that can be only hooked to a TV at one time?

Yes you can, but you will only receive analog channels and 'in the clear' QAM (digital) channels of your sets have a QAM tuner. Anything else ypu will need a external tuner (cable box).
Quote:


You're saying that I can receive only NBC OTA?

With a indoor antenna since it is only 10 miles away. An outdoor antenna will get the next bunch and possibly the 3rd group, but since I'm not familiar with your area, I can't say what you will receive, or what you can't. Your in a unusual location according to the map I used being on the ocean on that peninsula.

Those cooridantes are only a guess for you location. It could be off by 5 miles.
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post #29 of 68
6/7/08 at 5:40am
Getting my curiosity up, I did a Google Earth search and those three stations listed as Atlantic City/Camden (those cities being 70+ miles apart) aren't anywhere near those locations. The tower(s) is actually SE of a town called Cheislhurst (21 Miles from Camden and 34 miles from Atlantic City). I love how misleading the FCC data is by using the nearest metropolitan area for the xmitter license location instead of the actualy town.

Anyway, that location is around 120' as opposed to your 'at sea level' elevation which tells me you should have a chance with a good outdoor antenna.

As far as Salsibury MD, 1/3 of that distance is over water, but around Sussex DE, there is a 50' high spot, which wouldn't be a problem except the loocation of the xmitters appear to be in a lower area (20') south of the town of Sharptown (12 miles NW of Salsbury). Can't believe they choose that location.
So, that would be a challenge.
Anything further than that is probably out of the question, especially considering that you are at, or near sea level.

If you click on that map in the right collumn from that link I provided, it will pull up a larger map with the xmitter location in the center. Any other questions, see my sig.

Hope this helps.
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post #30 of 68
6/8/08 at 8:44am
Thread Starter 
I guess the best one for Wildwood is Salsibury MD which has at least ABC
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