Got a history of translators? How long have they been around?

[ixnay]

I've never lived in a market where I've had to depend on translators for my television diet, so I can only depend on hearsay re this topic...

How long have translators been around?  Since the tube's earliest days?  Since the early '50s?

ixnay

[KML-224]

Even Hartford/New Haven, the 29th largest market out of 210 markets today, had a couple. WVIT-TV (NBC) channel 30 of New Britain/Hartford, didn't always have the 3 million + watt signal and cable coverage they enjoy now. For a few years they operated channel 79 in Torrington (central Litchfield County) and, most importantly, W59AA channel 59 licesned to West Haven. By the mid-90s, that was shut off to make way for WCTX-TV (MY) channel 59 of New Haven. [Channel 59 started out with lower power and was known as WB affiliate WTVU-TV in 1995.]

[Neil Griffin]

Unlicensed TV boosters began popping up out west in the early and mid 1950's.  These were usually a large antenna, an amplifier, and another antenna on the other side of a hill or mountain to re-radiate the signal on its original frequency.  These were prone to oscillation (transmitted signal gets back into the receive antenna), and caused interference if you were in an area where the original and retransmitted signal overlapped.

The solution was to convert (or translate) the incoming signal to another frequency, and the FCC began licensing translators in the early 1960's.  Originally, channels 70-83 were set aside for translators, but this specturm was lost to cellular services in the early 1980's.  Now channels 52-69 are being cut from the TV spectrum.  FM translators came along in the early 70's.

Most translators are in mountainous areas of the west and Appalachia or rural areas distant from nearby cities (Alaska, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, etc.).  I grew up in Ottumwa, Iowa, where we had translators for several of the Des Moines stations and public TV.  Most of the time they were OK, but since they did pick their signals up off the air, there could be interference or sometimes a different station on the same frequency would be picked up and repeated.

Translators have gone away in some areas, etiher because of better coverage by TV stations (such as the example of WVIT above), availability of cable and satellite TV, or lack of financial support.  Some translators are owned by the originating stations, but others are owned by non-profit groups, or local government. 

The switch to digital is affecting the translator service.  Some translators had to change channels or sign off to accomodate the additional frequencies assigned to full-power stations for digital signals.  The translators themselves will have to switch to digital, although they are not bound by the 2009 deadline.  The cost of conversion is likely to put some off the air.

There has been a lot of testing of digital translators in Utah, and there is some good news.  With good line of sight, not a lot of power is needed for coverage, so some digital translators have better coverage than their analog counterparts.  The higher quality signal also helps when translators are daisy chained (some communities received signals that had originated in Salt Lake City and were repeated 5 or 6 times)..  Digital translators can either repeat the full bandwidth digital signal (including HDTV) or they can multiplex several stations in standard definition.  Exisiting analog translators can be modified to use digital signals as the input.

Another plus for digital translators is the ability for channels to be remapped.  So the translator viewer sees the station they know as channe 5 on their TV as channel 5, even though the signal is actually being received on channel 43.

[Charles1]

When WBMG-42 (now WIAT) signed on in Birmingham in '65, they operated a translator on Channel 78 that covered the southern part of the Birmingham area.  I'm not sure when they turned it off.  Today, they operate a translator on Channel 4 in Sylacuaga, about 45 miles SE of Birmingham.

[anotherguy]

WMC NBC 5 in Memphis used to have a translator on channel 9 in Dyersburg, TN, where I grew up. It went off some time in the 70's when cable really took off.

KAIT ABC 8 in Jonesboro, AR had a translator on channel 11 in Blytheville, AR that was noted in TV Guide in the channel guide in the front of the schedules. I think it was on well into the 80's, but I'm not sure when it went off.

[dhett]

Unlicensed TV boosters began popping up out west in the early and mid 1950's.  These were usually a large antenna, an amplifier, and another antenna on the other side of a hill or mountain to re-radiate the signal on its original frequency.  These were prone to oscillation (transmitted signal gets back into the receive antenna), and caused interference if you were in an area where the original and retransmitted signal overlapped.

The solution was to convert (or translate) the incoming signal to another frequency, and the FCC began licensing translators in the early 1960's.  Originally, channels 70-83 were set aside for translators, but this specturm was lost to cellular services in the early 1980's.  Now channels 52-69 are being cut from the TV spectrum.  FM translators came along in the early 70's.
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Nice overview - thanks!

It's worth mentioning that channels 52-59 are still available on a secondary basis for LPTV, just as the 70-83 spectrum used to be, but most stations are moving into the core spectrum, channels 2-51, anyway.

[M.J.]

In Canada, because of the vast remote areas as one moves further away from the American border, low-power and high-power translators existed very early on, for both TV and AM radio. In particular, the CBC started installing what they called LPRTs (low-power radio transmitters) in the 1950s. For example, CBL in Toronto had 15 LPRTs in Northern Ontario by 1957, in communities as far away as Dryden. Others were located in communities such as Marathon, Chapleau, and White River.

On the TV side, there were several translators on the air by 1958, although I doubt any of them were extremely low powered. CJOX/10 in Argentia, Newfoundland rebroadcast CJON/6 in St. John's; CFCL/2 in Elk Lake and CFCL/3 in Kapuskasing rebroadcast CFCL/6 in Timmins, Ontario; CKSO/3 in Elliot Lake, Ontario rebroadcast CKSO/5 in Sudbury. And in Quebec, two translators in the 70-83 band were approved but not yet on air in 1958; those were CFCM/75 in Clermont, to rebroadcast CFCM/4 in Quebec City, and CJBR/70 in Estcourt, to rebroadcast CJBR/3 in Rimouski. When CHBC in Kelowna, BC went on the air, it already had two translators at Penticton and Vernon. In 1962 CHAB/4 in Moose Jaw added a translator CHRE/9 in Regina, and around the same time CKCK/2 in Regina had started its first translator at Colgate. Throughout the 1960s the CBC added translators throughout the country, some of which rebroadcast other stations on a delayed basis since they were too far from the originating station to rebroadcast directly. By the end of the 1960s, there were quite a number of translators in Central and Northern Ontario; CKVR/3 in Barrie had low-power translators in Huntsville, Parry Sound, and Haliburton; CHEX/12 in Peterborough had them in Minden and Bancroft; CFCL in Timmins had added more translators by then; CFCH/10 in North Bay had a translator CJTK/3 (no longer broadcasting) in Temiscaming, Quebec. And the CBC French network had a number of translators in Northern Ontario rebroadcasting CBOFT from Ottawa, in communities including Timmins, Sturgeon Falls, and Sudbury.

[ixnay]

Thanks, people.

Though I've never had to rely on a TV translator, I seem to remember, back in the '80s, seeing IDs for WGAL-8 Lancaster, PA's translators.  Do they still exist?

Also, M.J., how about translators for stations in Nova Scotia, a province I visited in 1980 and 1983?

ixnay

[radiorob2.0]

Kentucky Educational Television used to maintain many translators, now they are down to three.  http://www.ket.org/agency/visit/transmitters.htm

[dhett]

Thanks, people.

Though I've never had to rely on a TV translator, I seem to remember, back in the '80s, seeing IDs for WGAL-8 Lancaster, PA's translators.  Do they still exist?

RecNet (http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php) doesn't show any - they're usually pretty reliable.