Talk:Channel 1 (North American TV)

Untitled discussion
The article speaks of N. America's lack of a Channel 1, but then only goes into the US history. I can vouch for the fact that Canada also lacks a Channel 1 (can't say since when, but I'm guessing the timeframe is similar with the US), FCC regulations obviously don't apply to us. Can the article either be updated (replacing N. America with "United States", or adding Canadian background to live up to the "N. America" moniker)?--Canuckguy 14:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * A belated answer for Canuckguy: television broadcasting in Canada began in 1952, well after all of these changes occurred. Canadian households in Toronto, Windsor, and Vancouver were already watching television from nearby U.S. markets, and had U.S.-market television sets (without channel 1), so there was never an opportunity for such an assignment in Canada.  121a0012 (talk) 03:37, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Very good point. I have added the reference article March 1982 issue of Radio Electronics Magazine that was later edited and expanded by J. W. Reiser of the FCC's International Bureau. This was likley original poster's source for original Wiki entry -- the article is FAR BETTER - and MORE ACCCURATE Greg 03:31, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Very strange: Even on continental Europe there is no channel 1, even if in most countries (except the UK, France and Germany) television started after the war. The prewar channel 1 was not in use there either!--194.77.253.245 (talk) 14:14, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Inaccurate digital info
In this article, it talks about channel 6 not being assigned to digitals. This is untrue. KYES-DT in Anchorage, AK is on channel 6, as is WDTV-DT in Weston, WV and WEDY-DT in New Haven, CT.

They are not widespread due to FM interference, but there is no strict policy against their use. In fact, of those three stations, only WEDY-DT was assigned channel 6 by the FCC--the others applied to move there, WDTV-DT from 59 and KYES-DT from 22.

I'd make the change myself, but I know I'll end up rambling about it.


 * You have that backwards. WEDY swapped DTV allotments with WCTX very early on, specifically because WEDY already operated at very low power and would not suffer any loss in service area as a result of being on channel 6.  WDTV will be moving back to channel 5, so using channel 6 at low power probably allowed them to transmit from an existing backup antenna; in any case, they could not operate on their originally-assigned channel, 58 (not 59), because the station is located in the Green Bank, West Virginia radio quiet zone.  Channel 58 is out-of-core anyway, so WDTV won't be keeping it.  See BPCDT-19991029AFO.  KYES-TV's post-transition channel is 5, and they're trying to get the FCC to approve a creative, multi-site, low-power operation to keep construction costs down (see BDTRCT-20080219BMD).  121a0012 (talk) 02:27, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

WRGB-TV (CBS Schenectady) is one of the more notable DTV stations to be returning to VHF 6. Go to fcc.gov's "TV query" and there are bound to be others, although there are more digital construction permits currently issued for stations moving (or moving back) to channel 7 than for every channel from two to six combined. Blame severe impulse noise vulnerability and insanely-low licensed power limits on Band I for that, I'd suspect. I have no idea why the FCC is even bothering to inflict analog shutdown on low-VHF as they've effectively turned it into a digital wasteland. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 19:21, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

To claim that WDTV-DT "applied to move there" from UHF 59 also neglects to consider that a 700MHz-band frequency, were WDTV to build a transmitter there, would be a temporary assignment. Stations cannot remain on channels 52-69 after the end of the DTV transition in the United States because those frequencies have already fallen to the government auctioneer's hammer; build on 59 now and expect to have to build the same transmitter again on some lower frequency next year. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 01:36, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Uses of channel 1
Comcast uses a "digital" channel 1 for its "On Demand" service.


 * It does? That's terrible! After all, it says right here that an episode of The Real Ghostbusters entitled "Station Identification" involved ghosts using Channel 1 as a portal to people's homes. I wouldn't want ghosts getting into *my* home just because Comcast had screwed up again and let them onto Channel 1. It was bad enough when they were sending fake IP-connection reset packets into modems to break file sharing apps. Comcast must be stopped! --66.102.80.212 (talk) 19:15, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Digital (virtual) Channel 1
The article says, "Technically, the ATSC standard allows for a major virtual channel number from 1 - 99...." Technically? Virtual channels 1.1 to 1.15 are used for broadcasts over the air in San Francisco. This can be verified by anybody in the SF area with a modern TV, a reasonable antenna (even indoor) and a clear signal. It's a bit late in the game to say that it exists only in theory. Hagrinas (talk) 17:26, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

RCA Scandal??
What is this "RCA scandal" that is mentioned briefly? I can't find anything on google because I don't have good enough search terms...


 * Try searching for "Philo Farnsworth" "patent dispute" "inventor" "television" "RCA" as there were long and drawn-out disputes over the original broadcast TV patents; add the delays for years of legal wrangling to the delays in deploying television on a wide scale due to the war and much of the useful life of the patents would have passed before any money was made from any of this newfangled television nonsense. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 23:48, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Channel linking in section "Table of US FCC allocation of VHF band"
I've got a couple of comments.


 * I wonder if there's a better article somewhere for this information, since this article is about just the Channel 1 VHF band. Or, if this information is already in another article, maybe this section should be removed and whatever article that is can be added to a "See also" section.


 * Since this article appears to only be about Channel 1 in the US, I wonder if it should be named Channel 1 (United States) or something. Or is the theory that if someone has information on the use of Channel 1 in other countries, it would go in this article too?


 * I came to this page while fixing links to the disambiguation page Channel 10. I noticed that every channel in the table has a link, but this always goes to either a disambiguation page, or to an article on a channel in another country.  This should be changed, but there are two choices, and I don't know which way to go.


 * I'm not sure if it would be better to simply delink the channel numbers, or to link to a list of stations in the US using that channel number? I would think the second, except I see there is no article called List of Channel 10 TV stations in the United States, there's only Category:Channel 10 TV stations in the United States.  Can you link to categories in an article like that?


 * If this article is (eventually) going to be about Channel 1 in different countries, then just delinking the channel number would probably be best.

If I don't hear from anyone, I'll BE BOLD as they say and link the channels to the US categories, and if this is dumb then someone can let me know. I'm not bold enough (or sure enough of myself) to move the page. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:37, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and delinked the articles. I looked around, and haven't found any other articles where blue links go to a category instead of an article, so I assume that's not accepted practice. I still wonder if this article is the right place for this list. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Name of article
NTSC color was never used on channel 1, so the title of the article is misleading. 121a0012 (talk) 03:29, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Philadelphia market - loss of 5 upper UHF channels?
The article mentions "On June 12, 2009, channels 52 to 69 (698 to 806 MHz) were removed and will be reallocated for other uses."

The Philadelphia TV market has five stations that may be affected by this move, including WNJT (TV), a PBS affiliate in Trenton, New Jersey on Channel 52; WPSG, a CW affiliate on Channel 57; WPPX-TV, an Ion Television affiliate on Channel 61; WUVP-DT, a Univision station in Vineland, New Jersey on Channel 65 and WFMZ-TV, an independent station in Allentown, Pennsylvania on Channel 69.

How will these five stations be affected? Is this overridden by the digital TV conversion? Bill S. (talk) 12:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * None of those stations broadcast on their nominal channel numbers. The articles you link to should all state the RF channel they operate on.  That's not really relevant to this article.  121a0012 (talk) 01:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

CHANNEL 1 ON CABLEVISION
Cablevision no longer shows the local Times Warner news channel on Ch. 1. It is now on Ch. 8 (previously unused).

Alvin P. Bluthman apbluthman@aol.com July 21, 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.9.56.203 (talk) 13:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Wrong article title
Japan also uses NTSC-M, but with another channel grid. As this is only about the american Channel 1 and not about the japanese at 90-something MHz, the title is wrong and the article should be moved to Channel 1 (United States) (as it was only used in the US) or Channel 1 (North America) (as it is/was part of this region's TV channel grid). --188.110.104.17 (talk) 22:29, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Japan appears to have used NTSC-J not NTSC-M. -Sparkgap (talk) 22:40, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * If I'm understanding NTSC-J correctly, then there is no real specific standard NTSC-J but it is rather the way NTSC-M was used in Japan. Therefore one can still say, that Japan uses/used NTSC-M and the current title remains wrong.
 * The assumption that channel allocations are unique for one video standard (like NTSC-M, PAL-B etc.) is wrong anyway. Except for Japan there may be only one for NTSC-M, but if you take PAL-B for example, there are various different channel allocations in the different regions of the world and even several different in Europe (in the VHF band).
 * So as this article deals with the (North) American Channel 1, the article should be named accordingly. --188.110.104.17 (talk) 01:28, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm... rename the article to "Channel 1 (North American TV)", perhaps? --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:03, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, why not? That sounds like a good article title. Somebody should move it there. --78.42.233.4 (talk) 22:30, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Only Channels 2 to 6?
In the Smithsonian Technology Museum (if that's the correct name) there is an antique television whose dial has only channel numbers 2 to 6 on it. Does anyone know what prevailing "allocation conditions", and when, this would have come about? 141.158.64.119 (talk) 22:31, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, that would be the "low band"; it's not implausible that such receivers existed. If it was a "turret"-type tuner, as many were at that time, it's also possible that the numbers on the dial have no connection to the actual broadcast channels (i.e., each setting would have been tuned to a specific channel by the retailer or by a repair shop, and other channel numbers would ordinarily have been applied by the technician as a part of the servicing).  And very early on, the current "high band" was not yet available for use, so a different set of TV channels were being used; perhaps this was a transitional design between two different bandplans, the manufacturer not having had time to redesign their sets for the new band.  If we knew when this set was made, we could say for sure.  121a0012 (talk) 03:37, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

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Requested move 5 February 2020

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Closing the request per Netoholic suggestion of splitting. Will ping current participants to those when they happen. (non-admin closure) Gonnym (talk) 07:04, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

– Following the guidelines at Naming conventions (broadcasting) and following the actual article text, these should all be disambiguated by the "(country-adjective TV channel)". If any of these are networks and not channels, please say so (as again, the articles all say channels) and will update the destination. Regarding the British article, it doesn't mention Ireland once, not even in the categories and we don't disambiguate by lower-country divisions (so no "Texas TV channel"). Gonnym (talk) 22:03, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Channel 1 (North American TV) → Channel 1 (American TV channel)
 * Channel 1 (Syria) → Channel 1 (Syrian TV channel)
 * Channel 1 (Bangladesh) → Channel 1 (Bangladeshi TV channel)
 * Channel One (Albania) → Channel One (Albanian TV channel)
 * Channel One (UK and Ireland) → Channel One (British TV channel)
 * Channel 1 (Israel) → Channel 1 (Israeli TV channel)
 * Oppose The guideline suggests that "(radio channel) or (TV channel)" can be used as disambiguation, presumably in the case of needing to disambiguate between radio and television channels with the same name. In these cases, all are TV channels with apparently no radio equivalent, so the current disambiguation appears sufficient, and the suggested additions are an unnecessary lengthening of the titles. Number   5  7  23:04, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose and suggest to Gonnym splitting this into individual move requests. Channel 1 (North American TV) is not a conventional "channel" (ie not a business that airs programming), but about a frequency allocation. That article includes information from outside of North America, also.  It might be better described as channel 1 (television frequency).  Some of the others above are more accurately described as (TV network), the UK one, for example. Overall, I think it warrants individual discussion as there are distinct issues for each. -- Netoholic @ 00:43, 6 February 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.