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Has there ever been a channel 37 station?

E

edward1978

Frequent Participant
Do any of you guys know if there had ever been any channel 37 stations? According to Wikipedia it was taken out because of the space program or something of that nature. Could it have used like channels 70 and above?
 
Channel 37 has never been used by any over-the-air television station in Canada or the United States.
 
However, a channel 37 application in Baker, OR, did get by the FCC and a construction permit was issued for station K37AA in 1983. It was canceled a year later.

The FCC lists 34 applications for channel 37, including seven digital. All except the above have status Facility Void. The most recent attempt was by Catholic Television Apostolate, who requested a original construction permit for a digital station on channel 37 in Sioux Falls, SD, in April 2010. It was dismissed by the FCC two months later.
 
So what you're saying is, OTA Ch. 37 is the Area 57 of broadcasting?
 
Stop!

While it is likely true that US & Canada have not had a 37, there are at least two analog UHF channel 37's operating on this earth, and both clearly say so:

WIN TV in Trinidad and Tobago, and
CDN 37 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_37 (I know....FWIW)

Not that I care for them personally, but both should be available online to view.

*I looked at www.wwitv.com just now, and I now only see CDN 67--so maybe CDN has moved off.

cd
 
Channel 37 is in use in Europe (it's actually roughly the same frequenxcy, but a few megahertz lower). It's the principal channel for the British "Channel 5" national network, one of five major national broadcast networks.

But nowhere is it being used in North America (Canada, the US and Mexico) because scientists use the frequency for aerospace research and radioastronomy.
 
cd637299 said:
Stop!

While it is likely true that US & Canada have not had a 37, there are at least two analog UHF channel 37's operating on this earth, and both clearly say so:

WIN TV in Trinidad and Tobago, and
CDN 37 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic*
Click to expand...

I believe there are some stations in the Phillippines, which uses NTSC-M like the US, that broadcast on channel 37.

And I believe there are some stations in Japan that broadcast on channel 36, which is equivalent to channel 37 in the US; Japan uses NTSC and the same UHF frequencies as System M, but the numbering begins with channel 13, which is the same as our channel 14.

Bob1370 said:
Channel 37 is in use in Europe (it's actually roughly the same frequenxcy, but a few megahertz lower). It's the principal channel for the British "Channel 5" national network, one of five major national broadcast networks.
Click to expand...

Though it's probably a moot point now, as the UK had recently converted its conversion to digital.
 
edward1978 said:
Do any of you guys know if there had ever been any channel 37 stations? According to Wikipedia it was taken out because of the space program or something of that nature. Could it have used like channels 70 and above?
Click to expand...

Channel 37 is and always will be reserved for radio astronomy purposes.
 
Ever wonder, then, why TV's even *have* a choice of a ch 37? (The Trinidad/Philippines 37's are kinda recent, I think.....one would think that this radio-astronomy would be a worldwide thing.)

I suppose that any omission of a 37 on a TV would leave more questions from consumers than answers, and the manufacturers don't wanna bother.

cd
 
For those not wanting to wade through a nearly 500 page document, the Oregon TV allocations are on p. 418. An allocation by frequency shows that there were 20 cities with a channel 37 allocation in 1954, including WGOV-TV Valdosta GA (p. 424). Not sure if it was on the air or a construction permit.

The channel 37 allocation no longer existed in 1983, when the FCC granted the CP for channel K37AA in Baker.

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-BC-YB/1983/C-TV-1983-YB.pdf (p. C-81)
 
Sorta makes you wonder why Fidel Castro never built one and fired it up
at 8 or 9 million watts ERP. ???
 
Back in the spring of 1952, when the FCC's Sixth Report and Order that allocated most of the country's television channel assignments for the rest of the analog TV era came out, there were a bunch of Channel 37 assignments. Most of them were small to medium-sized cities ranging in size from Melbourne, Florida to Peoria, Illinois. But one allocation was made to Paterson, New Jersey within the greater New York City area. Had it been applied for and built, it would have gone on the air with a high-power signal, probably from the Empire State building.

Because UHF grew so slowly in the 1950s, only one CP was issued in 1952-53, for station WGOV-TV in Valdosta, GA. Evidently by the end of 1953 no one else had applied for the channel. The CP had evidently been returned by 1957, since WGOV-TV no longer shows up on the list of yet-to=be-built CPs in Broadcasting's 1957 yearbook. The Paterson, NJ allocation didn't last long either---in fact ALL the channel 37 allocations originally enacted in 1952 were gone by 1958. The closest channel to 37 ever used in the New York area was Channel 41, which became home of WXTV (one of the city's principal Spanish language stations) in the 1960s.
 
Bob1370 said:
The Paterson, NJ allocation didn't last long either---in fact ALL the channel 37 allocations originally enacted in 1952 were gone by 1958. The closest channel to 37 ever used in the New York area was Channel 41, which became home of WXTV (one of the city's principal Spanish language stations) in the 1960s.
Click to expand...

Dig back deep enough on americanradiohistory.com and you'll find some Broadcasting Magazine mentions that show the Paterson 37 allocation being shifted to channel 41 - so in a sense, WXTV is the Paterson 37.
 
edward1978 said:
It was taken out because of the space program or something of that nature.
Click to expand...



We know that channels 52 and above were taken out because of the cellular/mobile phone lines.
 
One reason TV sets made in the 1960s (including those with tuners that stopped on every channel, rather than tuning like radios) included ability to pick up Channel 37, is that FCC rule changes which took Channel 37 out of the mix back then envisioned re-opening Channel 37 for assignment effective in the beginning of 1974. That was changed and Channel 37 put on indefinite hold--but TV sets built until very recently, even some digital sets made just within the last few years, can pick up OTA signals from upper UHF channels that haven't had an operating signal on them in years. And yes, they could pick up a channel 37 signal, either analog or digital, if they found one.
 
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