Watching TV in Worcester MA?

[FRM-Yankey]

If you go back to the 1950's, Worcester and its environs made for a pretty decent sized metropolitan area.  More populous than cities that are in today's top 20.  And, the terrain of the area certainly does (partially) block some Boston area signals.  Remember that, when the TV markets were forming, Worcester was a larger city than Providence, Springfield or Hartford (and still bests 2 of the 3) and is just as far from Boston as Providence is. 

They were allotted channel 27, which was never very successful until becoming Univision.  Perhaps the success and failure of local TV in Worcester was tied to the relative failure (early on) of UHF.

Overall, my guess would be that politics came into play with regard to corporations not wanting to cede the western end of the Boston market.  However, I would love to hear from someone who knows the answer for sure.  Interesting topic though.  It certainly seems that Worcesterites get short-shrift when it comes to obtaining local news coverage.

Right on my friend, excellent and professional answer.............

[KeithE4]

They were allotted channel 27, which was never very successful until becoming Univision.  Perhaps the success and failure of local TV in Worcester was tied to the relative failure (early on) of UHF.

Worcester was assigned Channel 5 in 1947, while Boston was allocated 2, 4, 7, 9, and 13.  Springfield got Ch. 3, Providence got 11, and Manchester actually got Channel 1!  I don't know if there was ever a CP assigned for a Channel 5 in Worcester.

They were allocated Channels 14 & 20 in 1952, when 5 was reallocated to Boston.  Most people know about the failed WWOR/WJZB on 14, but was there ever a CP issued for Channel 20?

Link:  1947 TV Allocations

[Bill1820]

I thought 20 was originally allocated to Norwich, CT.  Is Norwich too close to Worcester?  20 was later switched with 53, with 20 being re-allocated to Waterbury, CT and 53 to Norwich.

Re the 1947 allocation table that shows 12 being allocated to Waterbury, here is a story I've heard from former WATR-TV, Waterbury staffers in the 60s: WATR and WPRO in Providence both applied for Channel 12 in 1947, and WPRO got the license because the FCC received its application one day before WATR's.

I always said Connecticut was big enough to have 3 Vs.

[Peter Q. George (K1XRB)]

They were allotted channel 27, which was never very successful until becoming Univision.  Perhaps the success and failure of local TV in Worcester was tied to the relative failure (early on) of UHF.

Worcester was assigned Channel 5 in 1947, while Boston was allocated 2, 4, 7, 9, and 13.  Springfield got Ch. 3, Providence got 11, and Manchester actually got Channel 1!  I don't know if there was ever a CP assigned for a Channel 5 in Worcester.

They were allocated Channels 14 & 20 in 1952, when 5 was reallocated to Boston.  Most people know about the failed WWOR/WJZB on 14, but was there ever a CP issued for Channel 20?

Link:  1947 TV Allocations

In fact, YES! Channel 20 in Worcester, MA originally had a Construction Permit in the 1950's for WAAB-TV, which was never built.  Later on in the 1960's, Channel 20 was reassigned to Waterbury, CT for WATR-TV (then an ABC affiliate, later an NBC affiliate) to move from Channel 53 (transmiter on Meriden Mountain) to Channel 20 with a substantial loss of coverage.  This move allowed Connecticut to receive a new educational channel allocation for Norwich on Channel 53, today's WEDN-TV.  BTW: Worcester's Channel 14 (WJZB/WWOR) had requested to move their facility to Needham on the Stainless Tower (along with WSBK/38, WKBG/56 and WREP/25) in 1968.  However, the fire that gutted Channel 14's hopes took the station off the air for good in 1969.  The new color facilities of Channel 14 (transmitter, switchers etc) were bought by State Mutual Insurance Company of Worcester to build the new WSMW-TV Channel 27 (now WUNI-TV)  which came on the air on the day after New Year's Day, 1970.  With the loss of Worcester's two lowest UHF allocations, Channels 66 and 48* were substituted by the FCC to cover for the loss.  Both 66 and 48* are currently occupied by WUTF and WYDN respectively.  As you could probably surmise, all of Worcester's allocations are occupied by stations that have their sights on the more lucrative Boston market, rather than serving the Worcester area.   

[vibe]

I was  able to watch both Ch 20 (Waterbury) and 27 (Worcester0 in the early 1970's. (from New Britain Ct)   We had a antenna w/ rotor and I always thought there was something wrong w/ the antenna.  Ch 20 was 'clear" but the picture always looked weak.  ch 27 was a little snowy but definitely watchable particularly if there was soports on.  I didn't reaLize the "problem" was the stations broadcast power was not all that strong.

[Peter Q. George (K1XRB)]

I was  able to watch both Ch 20 (Waterbury) and 27 (Worcester0 in the early 1970's. (from New Britain Ct)   We had a antenna w/ rotor and I always thought there was something wrong w/ the antenna.  Ch 20 was 'clear" but the picture always looked weak.  ch 27 was a little snowy but definitely watchable particularly if there was soports on.  I didn't reaLize the "problem" was the stations broadcast power was not all that strong.

Channel 20 was a very weak affiliate both with ABC and NBC.  While WATR (now the full-powered WTXX) got a more viable channel position moving from 53 to 20, they left the transmitter site in Meridan and settled for a less-than-adequate (with MUCH lower elevation) site in Waterbury.  It was a pretty low-budget operation.  I've heard from many people that the picture on WATR was always darker than most other stations.  They had no local color, and only had color (with some major phase issues) when they took an over the air NBC feed from either WWLP/22 in Springfield, MA or a very noisy OTA feed from WNBC/4 in New York.  The problem was that Waterbury was a shadow market from Hartford.  Plus, to add more problems to WATR,  WHNB-TV (Hartford's NBC station) set up shop with a full-color translator on Channel 79 in 1964 right in Waterbury, just in time for the 1964 Presidential Conventions.  What could Channel 20 do?  They were lucky that NBC took them in the first place.  Eventually, NBC helped Channel 20 to retrofit their transmitter for color and a direct network feed.  Still the quality on W79AA far surpassed any picture WATR was capable of.  Eventually, W79AA was moved to Torrington to give WATR a break.  WHNB was still a somewhat flea-powered UHF on Channel 30 and did not go full-power until 1978.

[vibe]

Yes the picture was darker but at the same time washed out.  We got a clear signal but the picture quality on Ch 20 left something to be desired. I used to blame the antenna. Nice post about the history though.
Ch 27 had a poor picture quality as well but the station transmitter was about 60 mi as the crow flies from New Britski.

[KML-224]

You musy have had good line-of-sight or height. I'm in New Britain's south end, between Walnut Hill Park and New Britain Stadium. I've only got a faint signal of channel 27 maybe twice ever here. I've never been able to get a usuable signal from Springfield. I even had problems for years with Hartford's own channel 24. As soon as it moved over to Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington, my analog reception problems on that channel went away.

[vibe]

We had a 3 story house (6 family) but in a low lying area of New Britski.  We had a less than perfect channel 8 by contrast abd that was with a large VHF antenna that still gave us fuzzy but watchable pictures from Providence (Ch 6) and Boston (2,4,5,7). It was said that a chuch steeple several blocks away blocked the siganl to some extent but that seems farfetched.  Many cities such as Worcester have pockets of great reception and other areas aren't as fortunate. 
I can't prove it but having seperate UHF and VHF antennas seem to work a lot better than a combo.

[KML-224]

That's hard to tell. I usually attach a pair of telescoping rods to my Sanyo 26" LCD HDTV (model DP26746). They don't have one of those slots to place it into. Therefore I rest the rabbit ears (which have no table base) on a tiny ledge on the top back of the TV. The extended rods then rest against the wall (in a "V" fashion) which is a foot behind the TV. Apparently, they were better designed as VHF because I usually get a stable signal from both WTNH-DT (channel 10) and WTXX-DT (channel 12). WFSB-DT (channel 33) comes in little, if ever. WVIT-DT (channel 35) and WTIC-DT (channel 31) are fantastic, with Rattlesnake Mountain 5 miles to my NW at most. WCTX-DT (channel 39) pops in once in a while. In this position, I get so-so signals of WHPX-DT (channel 34) and WEDN-DT (channel 45). It'll also get me WPXQ-DT (channel 17) from Rhode Island on occasion.

Again, my house is partially blocked to Avon Mountain, due to Walnut Hill and the park of the same name, being in the same direction (NNW). I'm basically at the bottom of said hill. I know this is the cause of my problems with WFSB-DT, since I rarely get WUVN-DT (channel 46) either.