old question: why isn't there a Channel 1?

[cbenham]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

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.

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...American_TV%29

Read it all and you'll understand!

Cliff