Answer:
There was a Channel One once upon a time--in 1945, to be precise, when the Federal Communications Commission first allocated broadcast television frequencies.

Later, however, the FCC repented its generosity and decided that TV was hogging too much of the broadcast spectrum. (Each TV channel requires a bandwidth 600 times as wide as an individual radio station does.) So the Channel One band (44 to 50 MHz) was reassigned for use by people with mobile radios.

Add that to your bag of useless trivia! :D

Old news to me....been in my bag of "useless trivia" for years now.

:rolleyes: @ E-M
Thanks for that info, Celt!

The short answer to this question, without going into a lot of history and details, is that the frequencies once known as television channel one in the U. S. were reassigned by the FCC in the late 1940s-early fifties, but not necessarily to land-mobile radio services. These frequencies, again without going into details, eventually were reassigned to the Amateur Radio Service as the six-meter amateur band. If anyone here is a radio amateur operating six meters, and has a TV that still tunes channel 1 (many late-'40s Hallicrafters sets and possibly others of that era did), it shouldn't be too difficult to retune that channel's oscillator and antenna circuits to 50-54 MHz.

BTW, six-meter operation was probably not very prevalent in areas with a channel 2 TV station, due to the risk of interfering with reception of that station. The reason is that the low end of the frequency range of channel 2 is 54 MHz -- right at the top of the hams' 6-meter band. While most amateurs did not operate anywhere near that close to the edge of the band, some did, and therein lies the problem. If an amateur were operating, for example, on 53.8 MHz, lived in an area with a channel 2 TV station, and his neighbor was trying to watch a program on that channel, the latter would not be pleased when "WB8XYZ calling WA8QRP, over" blasted through his TV speaker (along with interference to the picture), right over top of the program he was trying to watch.

I bet there was quite a bit of trouble like that in channel 2 areas in the early days of TV, immediately after the 6-meter band was opened to amateurs. I don't think there was much 6-meter activity in cities with channel 2 television stations for just that reason. This applies, of course, to television's beginnings in the late 1940s and very early fifties, when everything was on 12 channels, broadcast in monochrome and analog; NTSC color and UHF hadn't yet been thought of and the first TV systems in the U. S. were, of course, analog. The arrival of UHF in the late 1950s-'60s brought with it even more problems, not the least of which were weaker signals and a severe lack of sets that could receive the then-new UHF stations. Since most people living in areas with at least one UHF station still had VHF-only sets with UHF converters in those days, and the UHF stations themselves of that time weren't the high-power monsters they became by the '70s, the potential for interference was greater than before, not necessarily from 6-meter amateur signals but from hams' transmissions in other bands as well. Since UHF converters downconverted incoming UHF TV signals to an unused VHF channel, usually 5 or 6, a strong amateur signal appearing on either of these channels could cause real problems. Channel 5 is 76-82 MHz, six is 82-88 MHz, of course, but a very strong signal, amateur or otherwise, can blast its way past the tuner regardless of the channel's nominal frequency.

In the early 1970s, I lived in a Cleveland suburb which had an FM station on 92.3 MHz. I was living just one street over from that station's tower, and that station created very serious interference problems, not the least of which was to my TV, a 1964 Silvertone roundie, on which I could receive that station perfectly well (!) on channel 6. The problem was caused by the extreme signal strength in the area where I lived; it was just blasting its way through the set, with no regard for the tuned circuits in the tuner or anything else.

Hmmm. :scratch2: I wonder if DTV is prone to the same kind of interference problems we had to tolerate in the NTSC analog era.

Your recieving FM on that Silvertone in close proximity to the station sounds to me like your set picking up a harmonic. All transmitters produce some amount of harmonics (I don't fully understand harmonics, but I believe that they are multiples of the desired frequency) which the owners of the transmitters go to great lengths to suppress, but at close range to a powerful transmitter it is not all that difficult to imagine that the harmonics were strong enough to tune in clearly.

Yup...at times harmonics can indeed be annoying... :)

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3532/3210259270_e25532870c.jpg

Hmmm. :scratch2: I wonder if DTV is prone to the same kind of interference problems we had to tolerate in the NTSC analog era.

Yes

What I've always wondered about is overlap with the old FM band. It seems that in 46 and 47 they were making both radios with the old 42-50MC FM band, and TVs with CH1.

When I was a kid, I thought that there was no Channel 1 because all the TV stations would have fought to get that one. It wasn't until 1979 that I first saw a TV that had it.

I have never found out for sure if any stations ever actually transmitted on Channel 1 in the post-war period. There are lists of TV stations from about 1946 that do include several on Channel 1 around the USA.

At least one of the agile modulators I have seen (often used by us collectors to recreate NTSC signals for our collections) has the ability to operate on Channel 1. Now that I have a working TV with it (described here (http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=251332)), I am going to set up an in-house Channel 1 signal.

My 721ts on ch1 using a B-T AM40-450 modulator:

I had read, in some really old television installers handbook, that Channel 1 was abandoned mostly due to extremely poor performance; picked up ignition noise from cars and such.

My grandfather explained it to me this way as well. He said it was always an extremely noisy channnel, and after it was decided to not use it for TV, it was reassigned.

I had read, in some really old television installers handbook, that Channel 1 was abandoned mostly due to extremely poor performance; picked up ignition noise from cars and such.

My grandfather explained it to me this way as well. He said it was always an extremely noisy channnel, and after it was decided to not use it for TV, it was reassigned.

That's pretty much how I remember it as well.

That makes sense in fact; I know in my NTSC-watching days (specifically, with indoor antennas), Channel 2 was always the worst-looking and hardest to receive clearly. Channels 4 and 5 were better but often not great, and Channels 7, 9, and 11 almost always were easy to receive well.

One of the nice side benefits to the switch to ATSC is that most stations moved to UHF. Now if they would only get rid of the silly fake "channel" numbers left over from the old days.

Here's how I remember the NTSC days....back when I still had a working antenna on the roof, living here 40 miles or so from DC.

"Local" channels 4 and 5 came in ok. 7 and 9 were always the easiest and clearest. The UHF performance was horrible. The only analog uhf channel I got was. 53...only because I lived 5 miles from the transmitter. In fact, at night, I can see its blinking red light just over the tree tops.

Baltimore channels were iffy. They were all fuzzy, but 2 came in better than 11 or 13, Baltimore UHFs were impossible.

Mind you, I live amongst trees, in a slight valley, without a very good antenna or rotor.

When things went ATSC, well..back when I had an OTA tuner, everything was UHF, and I couldn't get anything. I had better luck getting one or two locals in digital with an indoor antenna.

Lower frequencies travel "farther" due to the fact they follow the curve of the earth slightly...higher frequencies are more line of sight. Higher frequencies are less sensitive to interference as lower frequencies. In TV, this simply means a VHF signal is going to travel farther than UHF. UHF will have less interference than VHF...but more noise. UHF transmitters usually used quite a bit more power because of that.

The official switch to all digital....I honestly don't know why many stations stayed UHF. The virtual channels are simply because they can, and its what we all grew up with. Its like I'm used to refferring to WTTG as channel 5...not 35,36, whatever its on these days. I'm sure they mostly wanted to avoid confusion to people who, for the most part, grew up with those channel numbers.

That makes sense in fact; I know in my NTSC-watching days (specifically, with indoor antennas), Channel 2 was always the worst-looking and hardest to receive clearly. Channels 4 and 5 were better but often not great, and Channels 7, 9, and 11 almost always were easy to receive well.

One of the nice side benefits to the switch to ATSC is that most stations moved to UHF. Now if they would only get rid of the silly fake "channel" numbers left over from the old days.

I hear ya. The broadcasters did not want to "give up" their incumbent channel listings even though in some markets, they marketed (and still do) their primary cable channel listings. Plus there was the baggage of UHF being "inferior". PSIP remapping has IMHO caused more issues than solved by the silly remapping scheme.

Most stations may have switched to UHF digital channels, but there are a few holdouts. For example, in my area, channels 3 (NBC) and 5 (ABC) are on UHF digital assignments but the DTV channel for CBS channel 19 in this area is actually VHF channel 10. Moreover, channel 8, the FOX affiliate here, is still on a VHF digital channel but will eventually move to, IIRC, channel 31, if I am to believe what I have been reading lately on Ohio Media Watch. Channel 19 has no plans that I am aware of to move its DTV assignment to UHF, although since this area is close to Lake Erie and a Canadian TV station on channel 10, the Cleveland station might well interfere with the latter, even though Canada's DTV transition is complete.

I am surprised channel 19 did not either stay on its original channel position (or else move to another UHF channel) after the transition. It would have made more sense for this station to have remained on 19, as did a station 60 miles south of here on channel 23. The latter, the ION television network affiliate for this area, was able to remain on 23 even after the DTV switch. I don't know how it is possible for a television station to switch from analog NTSC to ATSC digital while remaining on the same RF channel, but somehow 23 did it.

I don't know how it is possible for a television station to switch from analog NTSC to ATSC digital while remaining on the same RF channel, but somehow 23 did it.

Technically it is very easy to change from analog to digital just by swapping exciters, although meeting the strict out-of-band radiation limits could prevent doing it that simply (some high-level filtering may be required). A few stations (mainly public broadcasting, I believe) requested and got permission to do a direct cut with no transition period of dual broadcasts. In one of the cases I read about, they determined that only 3% (IIRC) of their audience was using the over-the-air signal, since they were serving a large state-wide area rather than a single concentrated urban population.

Jeff-

Maybe that station went from NTSC channel 23 to "pretend" 23 (but actually on another UHF channel) when it was first in digital, especially if it kept its analog signal on the air until 2009 as most stations did. Then, when the NTSC was shut off, the digital signal could have been moved to true channel 23. Two of the stations here in the S.F. Bay Area did this, so their signals are now really on the numbers they use (channels 7 and 36).

Jeff-

Maybe that station went from NTSC channel 23 to "pretend" 23 (but actually on another UHF channel) when it was first in digital, especially if it kept its analog signal on the air until 2009 as most stations did. Then, when the NTSC was shut off, the digital signal could have been moved to true channel 23. Two of the stations here in the S.F. Bay Area did this, so their signals are now really on the numbers they use (channels 7 and 36).

Actually, Chris, the technical term for what channel 23 did is "flash cut" from analog to digital, remaining on the same RF channel, but I'm not very familiar with the technique. Digital TV technology is very new to me, since I learned everything I know today about TV in the '60s and '70s -- when NTSC analog TV was still the standard of choice for U. S. and Canadian telecasting. I am familiar with such things as streaming video over the Internet (I sometimes watch the national evening news online if I happen to miss it on TV), but I have a lot to learn about digital television. Fortunately, there is a wealth of information on that very subject right here at VK (and elsewhere on the Internet), so you can be sure I'll be reading everything I can get my hands on regarding DTV and related subjects. I enjoyed watching NTSC TV but times have changed, so it's time to upgrade my knowledge for the DTV era. I also enjoyed working on NTSC television sets, but since everything now is solid state, surface-mounted components and so forth, not to mention no more CRTs, it is time to move on. I'm still getting used to the idea, for example, of my flat-screen TV being devoid of a kilovolt-level high-voltage system, as was used in NTSC sets; I still expect to see the hairs on my arms stand up when I walk past my set when it is on. Again, I am very glad and thankful that there is so very much good information here on ATSC digital TV, and, thanks to VK moderator Tim (Kamakiri), even a separate forum (Flat Panels and Digital Formats) in which to discuss this new technology. That forum is an idea whose time has come, and which brings Videokarma into the 21st century.

Actually, Chris, the technical term for what channel 23 did is "flash cut" from analog to digital, remaining on the same RF channel, but I'm not very familiar with the technique.

FCC records provide a glimpse as to how this was done (digital was on ch 59 before the transition):

SECTION II - CURRENT STATUS
1.
Currently Assigned Channels:
a. NTSC Channel: 23
b. Post-Transition DTV Channel: 23
c. Pre-Transition DTV Channel (if different from Post-Transition channel.) 59
2.
Relevant FCC File No. for Post-Transition Authorization, if on file with Commission (or indicate "Not Yet Filed"):
FCC File No. BPCDT- 20070625ACA Not Yet Filed
3.
Current Construction Deadline: 02/17/2009


From the WVPX "Transition Status Report" filed 10/21/08

jr

From 1936 until about 1985 the London area (UK) was served by a BBC TV station on Channel 1, vision 45.00MHz, sound 41.50MHz. Several million people received that transmitter.
John

I guess if you didn't live in the U.S. during the second half of the 20th century you wouldn't wonder about channel 1. For generations those of us who did knew nothing but sets with dials that started at 2 .

Channel 1 coverage could've been interesting if the Frequently Confused Commission had allowed 100KW visual 20KW aural at 1000' HAAT as they did so many low-band VHF TV's!

Also, the one station confirmed as operating on channel 1 never used the figure "1" in any of the material I've seen. They always put it as "Channel One".

Regarding Channel 1, there was talk at one time post-WWII to move TV to VHF-Hi and above. Channel 7 would've been the "new" channel 1. ABC-TV was supposedly so confident of that happening, that was supposedly why all their CP's were for channel 7! At least according to an ABC old timer I had talked with...

In the pre-TV 1930s, hams had a frequency allocation in that general neighborhood...the old "5 meter" band...just a few mHz up from the present 6 meter allocations. Channel One was probably the most interference-prone of the VHF lowband channels with spring & summer "skip" being a real problem. Channel 2 wasn't a whole heck of a lot better...I can recall growing up in Western MN and attempting to get Channel 2 out of Minneapolis on a "skippy" day and getting Winnipeg instead. Sadly, TV DX like that is pretty much history.:(

I had read, in some really old television installers handbook, that Channel 1 was abandoned mostly due to extremely poor performance; picked up ignition noise from cars and such.I thought channel 1 was re-allocated for EMERGENCY use but they didnt ever use it....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_1_(North_American_TV

Interesting to hear the different stories on this. First off, AFAIK, Channel 1 did not become the 6-meter amateur band. Channel 1 was 44-50 MC (not a typo - MC instead of MHz before 1966), Channel 2 54-60, and the 6-meter band was (and still is) 50-54 (MC or MHz). This allowed for Channel 1 to be used anywhere, even if there were a channel 2 in the area.

The plan was for Channel 1 to share the 44-50 MC spectrum with land mobile radio. They had thought that only in larger cities would there be a demand for mobile radio (that quickly turned out to be wrong as every rural VFD and county sheriff wanted it) and Channel 1 could be used for "local" TV stations in smaller cities and towns (much like the "graveyard" AM radio channels, 1230, 1240, 1340, 1400, 1450 and 1490).

The plan was doomed from the start, as mobile radio would cause too much interference, and it was found that television networks would not sign up affiliates in small towns that overlapped stronger big-city affiliates and O&Os as they had been allowing with radio.

In the pre-TV 1930s, hams had a frequency allocation in that general neighborhood...the old "5 meter" band...just a few mHz up from the present 6 meter allocations. Channel One was probably the most interference-prone of the VHF lowband channels with spring & summer "skip" being a real problem. Channel 2 wasn't a whole heck of a lot better...I can recall growing up in Western MN and attempting to get Channel 2 out of Minneapolis on a "skippy" day and getting Winnipeg instead. Sadly, TV DX like that is pretty much history.:(

Winnipeg never had a channel 2, you were probably getting Vancouver! (Sporadic-E favors distances of about 1,000 miles).

TV DX by Es is still possible, though there are far fewer stations on channels 2 to 6 to DX (most lowband stations chose to spend their digital future on UHF or highband channels). The poor multipath tolerance of DTV also makes it more difficult for a DTV signal to be decoded when it is coming in by Es.

The short answer to this question, without going into a lot of history and details, is that the frequencies once known as television channel one in the U. S. were reassigned by the FCC in the late 1940s-early fifties, but not necessarily to land-mobile radio services. These frequencies, again without going into details, eventually were reassigned to the Amateur Radio Service as the six-meter amateur band.

Oh, c'mon, lets get into some very interesting details about Channel One.:banana:

Channel 1 was allocated at 44-50 MHz between 1937 and 1940. Visual and aural carrier frequencies within the channel fluctuated with changes in overall TV broadcast standards prior to the establishment of permanent standards by the National Television Systems Committee.

In 1940, the FCC reassigned 44–50 MHz to the FM broadcast band. Television's channel 1 frequency range was moved to 50–56 MHz (see table below). Experimental television stations in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles were affected.[1]

Commercial TV allocations were made by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under the NTSC system on July 1, 1941. Channel 1 was located at 50-56 MHz, with visual carrier at 51.25 MHz and aural carrier at 55.75 MHz. At the same time, the spectrum from 42 to 50 MHz was allocated to FM radio. Several commercial and experimental television stations operated on the 50-56 MHz Channel 1 between 1941 and 1946, including one station, WNBT in New York, which had a full commercial operating license.

In the first postwar allocation in the spring of 1946, Channel 1 was moved back to 44–50 MHz, with visual at 45.25 MHz and aural at 49.75 MHz. FM was moved to its current 88-108 MHz band. But WNBT and all other existing stations were moved to other channels, because the final Channel 1 was reserved for low power community stations covering a limited area. While a handful of construction permits were issued for this final version of Channel 1, no station ever actually broadcast on it before it was removed from use in 1948.

There's MUCH more about channel one where this came from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_1_%28North_American_TV%29

Read it all and you'll understand! :D

Cliff

Cliff, my good friend,

I found some possible errors with the Wikipedia article on channel 1... or, "Channel One" as WNBT always called it, IIRC.

If W9XZV was the first "all-electric TV station", were the others steam powered? Perhaps using disused locomotives as a joke promo I saw years ago out of the U.K.?

Also, K2XBS was really KS2XBS and KS2XBR, the latter of which was still on-air into the 1970's on channel 38 testing systems later used in Zenith's OTA and cable scrambling systems. I'm sure our friend Wayne ("the flicker kicker") can provide more info on those stations.

Ahhh Zenith... where the parts went in before the name went on!

You know what's funny, I have a few modern TV's, even HDTVs, that have the ability to tune to channel 1.. Even my Panasonic VCR can do it.

Not sure why if nothing is going to be there.

I also once had a cable box that had a channel 1, which showed some PBS channel, but none of the TV's with channel 1 capabilities, showed anything on it without the box.

None of those cable-ready Channel 1 sets are tuning the "real" 44-50 MHz channel, though. I think I have even seen a "channel zero" on some kind of cable-ready device once.

A local digital TV station here, thanks to the abilities of the PSIP system, calls its channels "one-dash" various numbers.

If W9XZV was the first "all-electric TV station", were the others steam powered? Perhaps using disused locomotives as a joke promo I saw years ago out of the U.K.?

Once in a TV studio being readied for a show with a very famous TV star, the
director wandered in and asked an engineer if he could straighten up all the camera and mic cables. He wanted it to look nice that day.

The engineer, a good friend of mine who was deep into a broken camera that was needed in less than an hour turned and said, "Be glad were not doing all this with steam!" :banana:

Cliff

Channel 1 in Britain & New Zealand & channel 0 in Australia were in the mid 40 Mhz part of low band (band 1). London's Crystal Palace transmitter blasted 200 KW's of ch 1 to South East England. Ch 1 was also used in Northern Ireland in the Belfast area & Cornwall in South West England.

All of the High power low band (band 1) transmitters in Britain used vertical polarization & most (but not all) medium & low power ones used horizontal polarization. they did this to try & reduce co-channel interference which was a big problem at the time.

VHF TV on 405 lines was gradually shut down in the early 80's & the last transmission was in January 1985. Most people stopped using VHF TV in the early 70's as the old 405 lines only TV's wore out & were replaced by 625 lines UHF only sets, also colour was only broadcast on 625 lines UHF..

London's Crystal Palace transmitter blasted 200 KW's of ch 1 to South East England.

It also ran interference:scratch2: for Britain in the battle of the beams against the Nazi's 3rd attempt at radio-navigation and bombing, known as Y-Gerät. The Germans happened to pick ~45MHz for their system, and with minimal tweaking, London had one hell of a countermeasure available.

None of those cable-ready Channel 1 sets are tuning the "real" 44-50 MHz channel, though. I think I have even seen a "channel zero" on some kind of cable-ready device once.
My Jerrold StarCom III has "channel zero".

It also ran interference:scratch2: for Britain in the battle of the beams against the Nazi's 3rd attempt at radio-navigation and bombing, known as Y-Gerät. The Germans happened to pick ~45MHz for their system, and with minimal tweaking, London had one hell of a countermeasure available.

Ah yes NoPegs an interesting subject. I've read a few books on the 'Battle of the beams' fascinating stuff. The BBC shut down the transmitter just before war was declared, 'to prevent German aircraft using it as a beacon' they said! But did they know what was coming & so might need it for something else? The BBC radio programs on long wave & medium wave (AM) were made a single frequency synchronized network to prevent them being used as radio beacons..