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WGCB "Family 49" Sold

loeper said:
so channel 49 will be going dark? Wow. Did 49 start out in York as WNOW TV in the 50s?
Click to expand...

WNOW-TV on Channel 49 was a Dumont affiliate that went dark after the network went belly-up. Other Dumont affiliates were WCMB-TV Channel 27 in Harrisburg and WLBR-TV Channel 15 in Lebanon.

That's too bad about WGCB, coming just when Lou had managed to make it into a real TV station.
 
Lou Castriota,the vice president and GM of channel 49,is a true broadcast professional with years of experience in both radio and television.I am sure Lou will land on his feet regardless of the outcome of the sale.Technically,channel 49 ( which operates on digital channel 30 rf) does not have a strong digital signal especially south and southwest.
Their antenna is side-mounted on the tower and the absentee owner refused to spend the money to move it to the top where the analog antenna sits.Their strong suit is east over Lancaster county.
The majority of the time I am unable to receive their off air signal.
I had a close engineer friend who started his TV career at the old WNOW-TV in York.he later moved on to WSBA TV and then Susquehanna Cable.He would regale us with interesting stories about WNOW-TV at SBE meetings.The original studio and transmitter were located where 1250 radio,the religious station now operates from.( As well as 105.7 FM )
Prior to WHTM in Harrisburg going "high power"-channel 27 operated a translator on channel 62 ,with I believe a 100 watts or so,side-mounted on the 1250AM tower.It brought ABC programming :( to York and surrounding areas.
 
Retired Guy said:
Lou Castriota,the vice president and GM of channel 49,is a true broadcast professional with years of experience in both radio and television.I am sure Lou will land on his feet regardless of the outcome of the sale.

Prior to WHTM in Harrisburg going "high power"-channel 27 operated a translator on channel 62 ,with I believe a 100 watts or so,side-mounted on the 1250AM tower.It brought ABC programming :( to York and surrounding areas.
Click to expand...

WGCB-TV being sold was inevitable at some point but I always hoped a real broadcasting company would buy it and do something with it, not some spectrum speculator that will simply strip it for it's digital parts, so to speak.

Before WGCB went on the air, WHTM operated a translator on 49. I don't recall the one on 62. I wish WHTM would put a new translator for York County on the air, as WGAL did to fill in some gaps in the Harrisburg area. I don't have cable or satellite and WHTM is the only station I can't pick up off the air. The signal is blocked by the same ridge where 92.7 FM's transmitter is. Everyone else is fine (including WGAL's Harrisburg translator) but I can't get an inkling of WHTM. Oh well, guess they don't care about us York County off-the-air people.
 
WHTM ( channel 27 ) is actually operating on RF channel 10- WGAL is operating on RF channel 8.
A high band VHF antenna is required for optimum reception.It's unlikely their signal is being blocked
by ridges since VHF signals,with longer electrical wave lengths,tend to cover much larger areas,than the shorter wave lengths of UHF.With UHF you definitely need more line of sight,more power,and less obstructions.I reside near the PA/Maryland line and I am able to receive excellent VHF reception from both WHTM and WGAL without a pre-amp.
I would strongly suggest that you employ a high band VHF antenna,or a combination UHF-VHF antenna for your reception problems and mount it as high as feasible.Indoor antennas simply do not perform as well as outdoor antennas.
Excellent antennas such as Winegard or channel master should do the trick. :)
 
Retired Guy said:
Lou Castriota,the vice president and GM of channel 49,is a true broadcast professional with years of experience in both radio and television.I am sure Lou will land on his feet regardless of the outcome of the sale.Technically,channel 49 ( which operates on digital channel 30 rf) does not have a strong digital signal especially south and southwest.
Their antenna is side-mounted on the tower and the absentee owner refused to spend the money to move it to the top where the analog antenna sits.Their strong suit is east over Lancaster county.
The majority of the time I am unable to receive their off air signal.
I had a close engineer friend who started his TV career at the old WNOW-TV in York.he later moved on to WSBA TV and then Susquehanna Cable.He would regale us with interesting stories about WNOW-TV at SBE meetings.The original studio and transmitter were located where 1250 radio,the religious station now operates from.( As well as 105.7 FM )
Prior to WHTM in Harrisburg going "high power"-channel 27 operated a translator on channel 62 ,with I believe a 100 watts or so,side-mounted on the 1250AM tower.It brought ABC programming :( to York and surrounding areas.
Click to expand...
If there is anyone out there would would NOT hire lou Castriota, they are just crazy. he would be an asset to any operation in this area.
 
I wasn't aware that Lou was back at channel 49. I knew he was general manager there before he started to work for WPMT. The last I knew, he was working for WLYH/WHP. I worked with Lou at WPMT for many years.

Dennis
 
are we sure the new owners will take Ch. 49 off the air? they also own WTVE Ch. 51 in Reading and have not taken them off the air.
 
caj012885 said:
are we sure the new owners will take Ch. 49 off the air? they also own WTVE Ch. 51 in Reading and have not taken them off the air.
Click to expand...

"NRJ, headed by Ted Bartley, has been buying TV stations in or near major markets in hopes of flipping them at a profit in the FCC's planned "incentive auction" of TV spectrum. Hoping to shift spectrum from TV to wireless broadband, the FCC plans to set up a method by which broadcasters can voluntarily auction their spectrum and split the proceeds with the government."

NRJ-TV has purchased numerous stations around the country this year in the hopes that they can do what is in the quote above. If you sell a station's spectrum for use by wireless broadband, don't you have to take the station dark to do it, or at least relocate it to another channel, if that's possible? The value of WGCB's band space is worth multiple times the value of the station itself.

There are engineers who lurk here. Perhaps they can answer the question of what will happen to the TV station when its spectrum is auctioned.

You can read more about the proposed spectrum auction here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/business/media/fcc-to-consider-uhf-spectrum-auction.html?_r=0
 
Some stations will be taken off the air permanently. Frankly, some small ones could go off and no one would really notice. Cable penetration in markets and satellite operations make it an easy thing to happen. If Channel 51 in Reading was able to go cable only, they might end up with a better audience than just by having on-air operations. Would save tons of money on the electric bill.

There will be some stations that will be able to negotiate with other TV stations to share the channel. For example, WGCB could negotiate with WPMT to share their channel. WPMT could turn their 24 hour news channel over to WGCB. TV stations in digital have several options for multiple channel operation, although I think some eliminate the chance of ever doing the highest quality HD. Don't quote me on that.

The FCC did throw out the idea once to have ALL TV stations turn their transmitters off and distribute through cable only. That did not sit well at all. I think right now the FCC goal is to have TV stations share channels where possible and they want all TV channels over channel 30 to disappear and that spectrum be auctioned off the wireless/cellular businesses.
 
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