Is there (or will there ever be) a fixed FCC channel assignment chart?

[IM42A]

I know that during the analog days, there was such a chart, that by the mid-1960s had become pretty much set in stone, at least for VHF allocations, due to the need scrupulously to maintain co-channel distance separation and avoidance of adjacent channels (with the exception of 4/5, and obviously, 6/7 and 13/14). The digital channel assignments have been in a state of constant flux as stations seek ideal channel assignments, and what would have been extreme short-spacing in analog days is just par for the course in the digital era, such as stations in Charlotte (WJZY actually licensed to Belmont) and Columbia (WZRB) sharing OTA 25, likewise for WCIV in Charleston. Never mind that such "shoehorning" really plays hob with one's ability to DX TV, but then again the FCC doesn't have enabling of DX as one of its priorities, far from it. When you only have 30 channels (7-36), leaving low-VHF out of the mix, as the song goes, "something's gotta give", even if cities and towns in between two allocations lose both signals (as happens in Winnsboro SC, between Charlotte and Columbia, WJZY and WZRB cancel each other out, end result, zilch).

Short version, will there ever be a "fixed for all time" channel assignment list, as existed in the analog days? (It took an act of Congress, figuratively and almost literally, to reassign channels, such as when WTVQ in Lexington KY coveted and ended up getting Portsmouth, Ohio's channel 36 allocation, and the "drop-ins" such as WVAH-11 in Charleston WV whose contours ended up looking like an elongated peanut to protect WJHL, WPXI, WHAS, and WTOL.) And will there be the possibility of adding channel assignments to cities (at least east of the Rockies, where distances are shorter), or does a 30-channel universe pretty much max out all possibilities?

 

[tripinva]

The table of allotments is pretty much fixed in the more populated areas, as there isn't really much room to move around anymore.

- Trip

 

[Greg Strickland]

I don't think it will be fixed for all time. Nothing is broken. It is the Legislative branch, an independent agency, the Judicial branch and market forces at work.

 

[IM42A]

I don't think it will be fixed for all time. Nothing is broken. It is the Legislative branch, an independent agency, the Judicial branch and market forces at work.

Back in the days of analog TV channel assignments, it was based on a fairly rigid combination of distances between stations on the same channel (3 different zones each with their own minimum spacing requirements), adjacent-channel restrictions, minus and plus offsets, and various other technical restrictions (requiring UHF channels to be separated by at least six channels in the same city, etc.). You ended up with a type of carefully-planned matrix, and at least east of the Rockies (where cities and markets were closer together), there was barely room to wedge anything else in, most of all for UHF. They finally did manage to fit in four more VHF "drop-in" assignments in the 1980s (WWCP-8 Johnstown PA, WVAH-11 [ex-23] Charleston WV, WVLT-8 [ex-WTVK-26] Knoxville TN, and KSTU-13 [ex-20] Salt Lake City UT), and all except KSTU had to protect other stations on the same channel but closer than minimum FCC requirements.

Such micro-managing of channel assignments, and everything having to fit into such a matrix, is why channels 2/4/5/7/9/11/13 tended to cluster in the largest metropolitan areas (NYC, LA, and Chicago, in the case of the latter, including channel 4 in Milwaukee and channel 13 in Rockford). 3/6/10/12 in Philadelphia/Wilmington existed because of being between NYC and Washington/Baltimore. And so on.

My reasoning here was that since distance restrictions aren't as crucial as they once were, and there is no need to be concerned with adjacent channels, offsets, and so on (assuming this is the case, I'll welcome correction if not), even in a 30-channel universe (not counting the very few stations still on OTA 2-6), a fixed channel assignment chart might not be as rigid as in analog days, or that there might not even BE a fixed set of allocations. If someone wants to start a new full-power station, the question might then be "okay, let's see if we can fit it into all the other stations that are near enough to cause potential problems", and if it can be done, then presto, you've got your channel assignment. (And I am assuming that LP and CA stations just have to take whatever they can get, and if they are ever bumped by a full-power station, so be it, find another channel if you can.)

 

[fybush]

There are still spacing standards and there's still a table of allocations. It's all in 73.622.

The spacing standards are different for DTV - you can use adjacent channels if they're co-located or nearly so, for instance.

When channels in the table are vacated, they're put up for auction. This happened recently with several stations that were surrendered to comply with ownership limits (WNYS Syracuse, for instance, which gave up channel 15 there to keep the new Cox Media Group within local ownership caps). Sinclair bid on that channel and won a new CP.

In some areas with available UHF spectrum, stations operating on VHF have been able to petition to have their allocations moved to UHF. This happened recently in Albany, for instance, where WRGB has moved to U and WNYT soon will as well. LD stations can be displaced by this process, since they're secondary service.

In theory, if you could still find an available bit of spectrum somewhere, you could petition to have it added to the table and it would go up for auction at a future date. Trip might be better able to speak to whether you'd need to wait for a filing window or not. In any event, the remaining DTV spectrum is more crowded than I think you imagine it to be.

47 CFR § 73.622 - Digital television table of allotments.

www.law.cornell.edu

 

[DavidEduardo]

My reasoning here was that since distance restrictions aren't as crucial as they once were, and there is no need to be concerned with adjacent channels, offsets, and so on...

You bring up a good subject for discussion with the potential for changes in protections.

When Mexico decided to "decommission" AM, they allowed the overwhelming majority of stations to move to FM by allowing full second adjacent channel stations in the same market. While they could not do that in the US border zone, it has worked find everywhere else and causes no interference.

Some FM rules were written before receivers commonly had AFC and vestiges of those regulations endure. A lot could be done by reviewing those rules based on current technology.

 

[IM42A]

There are still spacing standards and there's still a table of allocations. It's all in 73.622.

The spacing standards are different for DTV - you can use adjacent channels if they're co-located or nearly so, for instance.

When channels in the table are vacated, they're put up for auction. This happened recently with several stations that were surrendered to comply with ownership limits (WNYS Syracuse, for instance, which gave up channel 15 there to keep the new Cox Media Group within local ownership caps). Sinclair bid on that channel and won a new CP.

In some areas with available UHF spectrum, stations operating on VHF have been able to petition to have their allocations moved to UHF. This happened recently in Albany, for instance, where WRGB has moved to U and WNYT soon will as well. LD stations can be displaced by this process, since they're secondary service.

In theory, if you could still find an available bit of spectrum somewhere, you could petition to have it added to the table and it would go up for auction at a future date. Trip might be better able to speak to whether you'd need to wait for a filing window or not. In any event, the remaining DTV spectrum is more crowded than I think you imagine it to be.

47 CFR § 73.622 - Digital television table of allotments.

www.law.cornell.edu

This is great, exactly what I had in mind. Broadly speaking, it looks then like the analog channel assignments table has been "forklifted" over onto digital, and channels assigned in lieu of their analog counterparts, IOW, "reinventing the wheel" and leaving allocations pretty much what they were, just on entirely different channels. (And, probably displaying ultimate geekery here, Ashland KY finally got back its channel 13 allocation that it lost probably 65 years ago when WHTN [now WOWK] set up shop in nearby Huntington WV and got the channel instead.)

Apparently there are still Zones I, II, and III. What are the mileage restrictions, or are there any in the digital era? Or is it just a case of extrapolating how strong the signal will be for a given channel, and to what extent it could interfere with another station on the same channel?

 

[fybush]

That's all set out in 73.623, which lists both the contour-based spacing criteria used in the DTV transition and repack and the mileage criteria for any new allocations.

You're quite correct that the old analog table was "forklifted." It had to be, since each full-power analog allocation had to be paired with a digital allocation leading up to 2009. Nearly all of those allocations then had to continue post-repack, except for the ones that entered into channel shares and have been preserved in the table with "S" instead of a channel number.

47 CFR § 73.623 - DTV applications and changes to DTV allotments.

www.law.cornell.edu

 

[IM42A]

That's all set out in 73.623, which lists both the contour-based spacing criteria used in the DTV transition and repack and the mileage criteria for any new allocations.

You're quite correct that the old analog table was "forklifted." It had to be, since each full-power analog allocation had to be paired with a digital allocation leading up to 2009. Nearly all of those allocations then had to continue post-repack, except for the ones that entered into channel shares and have been preserved in the table with "S" instead of a channel number.

47 CFR § 73.623 - DTV applications and changes to DTV allotments.

www.law.cornell.edu

Once again, great information, this clears up a lot for me. I do note, translating into miles (I can do either, but it is easier for me to think in terms of miles when comparing present to past rules, having learned the latter that way), that UHF co-channel allocations have to be separated by at least 117.6 miles, but that there may be case-by-case exceptions to this, one being very close to me, WZRB Columbia SC and WJZY/WYMT Belmont NC. They are separated by only 91.5 miles. I live 6 miles from the WZRB transmitter, but it is still very hard for me to get, presumably getting a lot of hash from WJZY. Out at Winnsboro (I tested it with a small RCA hi-VHF/UHF antenna on the grounds of the South Carolina Railroad Museum), you can't get either one.

 

[tripinva]

New allotments have to meet the distance separations. Existing ones do not.

- Trip

 

[tripinva]

(And, probably displaying ultimate geekery here, Ashland KY finally got back its channel 13 allocation that it lost probably 65 years ago when WHTN [now WOWK] set up shop in nearby Huntington WV and got the channel instead.)

Er, the original table of allotments from 1952 has channel 13 assigned to Huntington, not Ashland. Not sure where this is coming from.

- Trip

 

[Greg Strickland]

It is an evolution. When a new broadcast service is developed, the FCC might get it started with an allocation table. Then market forces in life find an ongoing interactive equilibrium. That's what I meant when I said it is not broken. The FCC is doing an excellent job.

No realistic person has a true crystal ball. For example, when FM classes and allocations were first developed, it was perfectly reasonable for the FCC to assume small communities near Los Angeles should be allocated Class A stations. Now of course LA is one giant Urbanized Area and Class A stations are not appropriate. Back then Miami and Fort Lauderdale were two different places. Planning allocations for all Miami-Fort Lauderdale stations to be on the county line at the mid-way point might not have made sense back then. And perhaps more importantly, it could have discouraged investment capital in nascent FM broadcasting. On the technical side, the FCC acknowledged effects of terrain on propagation, but declined to allocate locations at a granular level. I think that was the correct decision, for the reason below.

It is great fun for radio people to re-arrange things "the way they ought to be". I've spent many hours daydreaming about it myself. I have concluded that this is essentially ego-driven, authoritarian thinking and behavior. A dictatorship is wonderful when you agree with what it is doing. But what about when that dictatorship comes for you in the middle of the night?

I am saying the way radio spectrum is managed in the USA is a reflection of the normal way things work in our form of social organization and government. Our organizational structure, rules, administrative agencies, legislative, executive and judicial branches make it work.

We discuss, argue, debate, maybe get angry, reach compromise and consensus, vote, win, lose, but eventually move forward together as a country, knowing that we are all stronger together. It can be messy, but I think it is better than a dictator, at the FCC or anywhere else in government.

Don't lose your mind over spectrum allocation. We live in a great country. Work within our system and enjoy life.

 

[IM42A]

Er, the original table of allotments from 1952 has channel 13 assigned to Huntington, not Ashland. Not sure where this is coming from.

- Trip

I can't find a source, but I am pretty sure that somewhere along the line, channel 13 was sought by Ashland, but Huntington got the allocation instead. In 50+ years of following this stuff, I'm not going to remember exactly where I read something. Maybe Ashland never did legally have the allocation, but was seeking to have it moved from Huntington. I do have this from the book Towers Over Kentucky:



So maybe that was it, in that WCMI radio was licensed to Ashland, but at that time, operated out of Huntington. In many ways, Huntington and Ashland function as a single community, separated by Catlettsburg, Kenova, and Ceredo. WOWK (ex-WHTN) has in recent years upped stakes and moved to Charleston, though the station is still licensed to Huntington and has its transmitter on Barkers Ridge, close to the WSAZ and WQCW tower. As a practical matter, WSAZ is Huntington's sole remaining television station.

 

[IM42A]

It is an evolution. When a new broadcast service is developed, the FCC might get it started with an allocation table. Then market forces in life find an ongoing interactive equilibrium. That's what I meant when I said it is not broken. The FCC is doing an excellent job.

No realistic person has a true crystal ball. For example, when FM classes and allocations were first developed, it was perfectly reasonable for the FCC to assume small communities near Los Angeles should be allocated Class A stations. Now of course LA is one giant Urbanized Area and Class A stations are not appropriate. Back then Miami and Fort Lauderdale were two different places. Planning allocations for all Miami-Fort Lauderdale stations to be on the county line at the mid-way point might not have made sense back then. And perhaps more importantly, it could have discouraged investment capital in nascent FM broadcasting. On the technical side, the FCC acknowledged effects of terrain on propagation, but declined to allocate locations at a granular level. I think that was the correct decision, for the reason below.

It is great fun for radio people to re-arrange things "the way they ought to be". I've spent many hours daydreaming about it myself. I have concluded that this is essentially ego-driven, authoritarian thinking and behavior. A dictatorship is wonderful when you agree with what it is doing. But what about when that dictatorship comes for you in the middle of the night?

I am saying the way radio spectrum is managed in the USA is a reflection of the normal way things work in our form of social organization and government. Our organizational structure, rules, administrative agencies, legislative, executive and judicial branches make it work.

We discuss, argue, debate, maybe get angry, reach compromise and consensus, vote, win, lose, but eventually move forward together as a country, knowing that we are all stronger together. It can be messy, but I think it is better than a dictator, at the FCC or anywhere else in government.

Don't lose your mind over spectrum allocation. We live in a great country. Work within our system and enjoy life.

This is a hobby, plain and simple. TV enthusiasts such as myself engage in alternate scenarios pretty much "just for fun", to speculate on how things might be, as opposed to how they are, and ask "how did things end up this way?". There's nothing "ego-driven" or "authoritarian" about it, and it's not a commentary upon the system of government. It is really just a nerdier version of things such as fantasy football leagues.

I think it is worth considering, that cities and markets change in size, and allocations of channels sometimes reflect population and market conditions that no longer exist. A case in point would be Portsmouth, Ohio once having two commercial UHF allocations, channels 30 and 36. Portsmouth was a thriving industrial city and seemed poised for growth, and was possibly seen as eventually being its own TV market, or at least an "infill" market similar to Lima or Zanesville, cities of comparable size. Since then, though, Portsmouth's population has declined by half, heavy industry is pretty much gone, and in the early 1980s, the Lexington market, 90 miles away, wanted the channel 36 allocation, which had never been used in Portsmouth, to get WTVQ out of the nosebleed reaches of the UHF spectrum on channel 62. Similarly, Raleigh NC was once basically a "big small town", only one VHF allocation (channel 5), but has since become a blazing-hot mecca for more population growth, business, finance, commerce, education, and industry than was ever foreseen. Charlotte could be described similarly (minus the education factor, they don't have a Duke or a UNC Chapel Hill).

 

[Greg Strickland]

IM42A- I took your original post the wrong way. I understand now, I apologize for misunderstanding.

 

[IM42A]

IM42A- I took your original post the wrong way. I understand now, I apologize for misunderstanding.

No problem, I'm nowhere near gathering a crowd to storm the FCC and demand that they do the channel assignment chart all over again

(though doing something about my local WZRB and interloper WJZY so that I can get Defy TV and Newsy with rabbit ears would be nice...)

 

[IM42A]

Here's another example of a good-sized city that was "always a bridesmaid, never a bride" when it came to getting a major local English-language TV station:

Why doesn't Fayetteville have its own TV market?

Fayetteville, with a population of roughly 210,000, is the sixth-most populous city in the state. In the southeastern region of North Carolina, Fayetteville is the largest city by population. Yet, …

www.fayobserver.com

They are, with some good internal logic, asking "High Point, Greenville, New Bern, Washington --- Washington? --- all have TV stations, but we don't?", at least not a station that would be a real player in its market. Just the luck of the draw, and, as they point out, "too close to Raleigh". (Sumter SC is in the same situation, and coincidentally, is a military town as well. They're "too close to Coumbia".)

One thing they don't point out is that WECT-6 Wilmington, for many years, billed itself as "Wilmington-Fayetteville", and to this day, is carried on cable in Fayetteville as well as nearby Dunn. There's no real reason for that, other than inertia, I'm assuming "we carry it because we've always carried it". Look for it to go when they decide they need to carry something like The Cowboy Channel instead. (They may already carry that as well, I'm just using an extremely niche cable channel at random to make the point.)

 

[vchimpanzee]

No problem, I'm nowhere near gathering a crowd to storm the FCC and demand that they do the channel assignment chart all over again

(though doing something about my local WZRB and interloper WJZY so that I can get Defy TV and Newsy with rabbit ears would be nice...)

I don't know whether this would work for WZRB, but people in my area were warned we couldn't get WMYT after it went digital, so this is one reason I continued to get cable. The other is that with the trees and the distance from some transmitters, I'm not optimistic an antenna would even work, and then there is the problem of getting someone to install the thing in the first place.

When repacking was done, WMYT became a subchannel of WJZY. Couldn't that be done with WZRB?

 

[vchimpanzee]

One thing they don't point out is that WECT-6 Wilmington, for many years, billed itself as "Wilmington-Fayetteville", and to this day, is carried on cable in Fayetteville as well as nearby Dunn. There's no real reason for that, other than inertia, I'm assuming "we carry it because we've always carried it". Look for it to go when they decide they need to carry something like The Cowboy Channel instead. (They may already carry that as well, I'm just using an extremely niche cable channel at random to make the point.)

I just wonder why they moved the tower. But it's probably true the digital signal wouldn't have worked dependably from there.

 

[IM42A]

I don't know whether this would work for WZRB, but people in my area were warned we couldn't get WMYT after it went digital, so this is one reason I continued to get cable. The other is that with the trees and the distance from some transmitters, I'm not optimistic an antenna would even work, and then there is the problem of getting someone to install the thing in the first place.

When repacking was done, WMYT became a subchannel of WJZY. Couldn't that be done with WZRB?

If they could find a station willing to do that, I don't see why not. WZRB could easily move over to WKTC with at least some of its subchannels (three subchannels are presently duplicated on WZRB and WKTC), making use of WKTC's huge signal.

Are stations still able sell back spectrum, and/or just relinquish the signal to piggyback onto another station, sharing that station's channel? That way, you would eliminate the question of WZRB interfering with WJZY/WYMT south of Charlotten