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121-423: Farnsworth Peak, in local radio terms, refers to three separate radio transmitter sites. They are known as "Big Farnsworth," "The KSTU Site," and "Little Farnsworth." Each site hosts a number of transmission towers which broadcast radio and television stations . Extensive studies of RF radiation from the site were conducted in 2003 in an effort to aid engineers who work on the mountain. Farnsworth Peak contains

242-413: A $ 910 million deal; Howard Stirk Holdings concurrently agreed to purchase KMYU. The merger was terminated on August 9, 2018, by Tribune Media, nullifying both transactions; this followed a public rejection of the deal by FCC chairman Ajit Pai and vote by the commission to designate it for hearing by an administrative law judge, which was seen as a death knell for the proposed transaction. Following

363-649: A 1967 application was made by the Great Desert Broadcasting Company, which was never granted. In September 1977, Springfield, Massachusetts –based Springfield Television , whose other holdings were NBC -affiliated flagship WWLP in Springfield and ABC affiliate WKEF in Dayton, Ohio , applied to the FCC for channel 20. There had been a previous full-service UHF educational station in

484-408: A UHF Yagi antenna with similar gain is often found placed in front of it, occupying perhaps 1 m. Modern UHF-only antennas often use the bedspring array and are less than a meter on a side. Another effect due to the shorter wavelength is that UHF signals can pass through smaller openings than VHF. These openings are the spaces between any metal in the area, including lines of nails or screws in

605-624: A UHF frequency. Over time a number of former television channels in the upper UHF band have been re-designated for other uses. Channel 37 was never used in the US and some other countries in order to prevent interference with radio astronomy . In 1983, the US FCC reassigned channels 70 through 83 to the Land Mobile Radio System . In 2009, with the move to digital television complete in the US, channels 52 through 69 were reallocated as

726-609: A drop that was only partially compensated for by field upgrades or the availability of external UHF converters for separate purchase. Plummeting inclusion of UHF tuners in sets placed VHF–UHF intermixture at grave risk of failure. On the transmission side, UHF stations were also found to have issues involving transmission distance and strength. The FCC tried solving this problem by allowing the lower-powered UHF stations to broadcast with more power, but VHF continued to have more stations. Advertisers soon caught on to this and did most of their business with VHF stations since UHF tuner adoption

847-406: A facility specifically for digital television transmission. Specifically, Farnsworth Peak houses transmitters for the following stations: On September 13, 2009, lightning struck the tower carrying a majority of the area's digital television signals. The lightning strike took eight stations in total off the air, and damaged the combiner for the tower. According to the engineers on site, the combiner

968-512: A huge setback after a forced move from a 42–50 MHz allocation to an 88–108 MHz allocation in 1946. This had rendered all pre-1946 FM transmitters and receivers obsolete, and there was heavy resistance to moving FM a second time. Aeronautical radio is located above 108 MHz; military aeronautical radio used 225–400 MHz. Additional public safety, commercial land-mobile, and amateur radio services had allocations in Band II . It

1089-460: A length so that the desired radio signal will create a standing wave of electrical current within them. This means that antennas have a natural size, normally 1 ⁄ 2 of a wavelength long, which maximizes performance. Antennas designed to receive the same signal will almost always have similar dimensions. Because the antenna size is based on the wavelength, UHF broadcasting can be received with much smaller antennas than VHF while still having

1210-605: A paid UHF station offers foreign programs not shown on local TV and commencing regular service in January 1993, but it was closed down as a result from intense competition from the rival Sky Cable . From 2001 to the present, more channels were established, regional stations are established in the provinces which specialize news, public service and free programming. With Digital TV was introduced, all UHF channels will allocate their frequencies and can be served for broadcast companies such as ABS-CBN, GMA Network and TV5 , among others as

1331-647: A satellite feed directly from their U.S. military bases in Japan), at the time when Mount Pinatubo erupted and became abandoned. Commercial UHF stations began in May, 1992, as DWCP-TV on channel 21 became the first local UHF TV station in Metro Manila by the Southern Broadcasting Network as SBN-21 (then Talk TV ) and commenced free programing, the second channel, DWKC-TV (on channel 31) of

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1452-410: A sharp "blip" of noise, but leaves the signal clear at other times. This normally comes from local electrical sources, and can be mitigated by turning them off. This means that at a given received power, a UHF analog signal will appear worse than VHF, often significantly. For these reasons, in order to allow UHF stations to provide the same ground coverage as VHF, ideally about 60 miles (97 km),

1573-518: A top the Snowbird Tram on Hidden Peak. Farnsworth Peak is home to several full service television stations. KSL-TV is perhaps the best known transmitter site on the mountain, but the peak houses transmitters for KSTU -TV, the local Fox affiliate, KUCW (The CW), and KUTV (CBS) among others. KTMW , an independent station and KUPX , the local Ion affiliate, now broadcast their digital signals from Little Farnsworth Peak about 0.45 miles to

1694-535: A transmitter site leased from KSL-TV in the Oquirrh Mountains. As the first UHF station in Utah in five years and the first-ever UHF outlet serving the full Salt Lake market, station promotions prior to the launch explained to viewers how to tune in: "Ever wonder what that other dial is for? It's for 'U'!" Almost immediately, Springfield Television also began building translators of its own in order to match

1815-501: A vast majority of Salt Lake FM signals. The following is a complete list of FM stations with transmitters located on (or around) Farnsworth Peak. Local television networks KSL-TV , KSTU and other sites on Farnsworth Peak have provided space for amateur radio repeater operation. Farnsworth peak serves as a major hub, connecting western and southern Utah to the Utah Intermountain Intertie main hub repeater

1936-503: A year". The freeze would give the FCC and broadcasting interests time to address questions such as the allocation of additional channel frequencies, and the selection of a color television standard. At the time of the freeze, less than 100 stations were on the air, but stations already under construction would be allowed to complete work. All but one of these was on the VHF band; on December 29, 1949, KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut , became

2057-738: Is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah , United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by the E.   W. Scripps Company alongside Provo -licensed independent station KUPX-TV (channel 16). KSTU's studios are located on West Amelia Earhart Drive in the northwestern section of Salt Lake City, and its transmitter is located on Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains , southwest of Salt Lake City. More than 80 dependent translators carry its signal throughout Utah and portions of neighboring states. KSTU went on

2178-464: Is bigger than my entire operations budget. It would be David versus Goliath." However, the acquisition by Fox made KSTU one of just two stations owned by the company not to produce local news programming (the other was KDAF in Dallas ). As part of a corporate push to bring news to the remaining stations, in 1991, KSTU began building out a news department. Nick Clooney , a veteran television anchor and

2299-611: Is one of a loosely knit group of free commercial terrestrial television stations that is not a member of the major national networks keyed in Tokyo and Osaka . Japan's original broadcasters were VHF. Although some experimental broadcasts were made as early as 1939, NHK (founded in 1926 as a radio network modeled on the BBC) began regular VHF television broadcasting in 1953. Its two terrestrial television services ( NHK General TV and NHK Educational TV ) appear on VHF 1 and 3, respectively, in

2420-488: Is operated mostly by local governments or metropolitan newspapers with less outside control. Compared with major network stations, Japan's UHF independents have more restrictive programming acquisition budgets and lower average ratings; they are also more likely to broadcast single episode or short-series UHF anime (many of which serve to promote DVD's or other product tie-ins) and brokered programming such as religion and infomercials . Japanese terrestrial television

2541-418: Is the use of ultra high frequency (UHF) radio for over-the-air transmission of television signals . UHF frequencies are used for both analog and digital television broadcasts. UHF channels are typically given higher channel numbers, like the US arrangement with VHF channels (initially) 1 to 13, and UHF channels (initially) numbered 14 to 83. Compared with an equivalent VHF television transmitter, to cover

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2662-889: Is usually allocated for VCRs, decoder units (i.e. the ASTRO and MiTV set top boxes ) and other devices that have an RF signal generator (i.e. game consoles). Refer to Australian and New Zealand television frequencies for more information. UHF broadcasting was introduced in the Philippines in the early 1960s when FEN Philippines began broadcasts on channel 17 in Pampanga and Zambales (as in Subic and Clark bases), and channel 43 in Bulacan and also in Metro Manila on Channel 50 until 1991 (most of its programs and newscasts are from

2783-468: The 2023–24 NHL season , during Vegas Golden Knights conflicts on KUPX-TV , select Arizona Coyotes hockey games aired on KSTU's second digital subchannel, which usually carries Antenna TV . In 1984, when the station was an independent owned by Adams, KSTU general manager Vickie Street told Electronic Media that the station could not hope to compete with the well-established VHF stations in news, commenting, "We have two giants here. Their news budget

2904-559: The American Broadcasting Company and DuMont Television Network , the need for additional TV channels in major markets was urgent. For proponents of educational TV broadcasting, the difficulties in competing with commercial broadcasters for the increasingly scarce VHF channels was also a problem. Allocating more of the VHF band (30 to 300 MHz ) by moving existing radio communication users away seemed to be impossible. FM radio broadcasting had already suffered

3025-675: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The UHF band is now used extensively as ABC , SBS, commercial and public-access television services have expanded, particularly through regional areas. The first Canadian television network was publicly owned Radio-Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation . Its stations, as well as that of the first private networks ( CTV and TVA , created in 1961), are primarily VHF. More recent third-network operators that initially signed on in

3146-504: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) blocked an attempt by the school board to sell the station back to a buyer to be reverted to commercial use because of the effects such a reclassification would have on the development of UHF, then an agency priority, and on educational broadcasting in northern Utah. Channel 20 was allocated to Salt Lake City in 1952, but there was no interest in the channel until

3267-676: The National Telecommunications Commission plans to migrate all VHF channels to digital UHF channels before December 31, 2015, though this was delayed several times. Digital terrestrial television services are currently in development by the major broadcasting companies before the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) will be passed by law. South Africa only received analog TV service from 1976 onwards. There were three TV channels: TV1 (now SABC1), TV2 (now SABC2), TV3 (now SABC3), and later came

3388-783: The Radio Mindanao Network was launched on October 31 of the same year as CTV-31 from 1992 to 2000 (then E! from 2000 to 2003 and BEAM in 2011). The third channel, DZRJ-TV (channel 29) was also launched in 1993 for the Rajah Broadcasting Network, Inc. which specializes niche programing (mostly infomercials, foreign shows and cartoons). Two more channels include DWDB-TV (channel 27) of GMA Network, Inc. (as Citynet Television from 1995 to 1999 and EMC from 1999 to 2001) and DWAC-TV (channel 23) of ABS-CBN (as Studio 23 ) between August 27, 1995 and October 12, 1996, as fourth and fifth UHF stations, and

3509-737: The Republic of Ireland , UHF was introduced in 1978 to augment the existing RTÉ One VHF 625-line transmissions and to provide extra frequencies for the new RTÉ Two channel. The first UHF transmitter site was Cairn Hill in County Longford , followed by Three Rock Mountain in South County Dublin . These sites were followed by Clermont Carn in County Louth and Holywell Hill in County Donegal in 1981. Since

3630-683: The Wasatch Front whose antennas were aimed at the Oquirrh Mountains. It signed off in 1960, having been placed in bankruptcy, and the license was sold to Brigham Young University for reactivation as KBYU-TV . At the other end of the Wasatch Front, in Ogden , KVOG-TV began on channel 9 in 1960 but was sold to the Ogden city school board in 1962 and converted to educational use as KOET , which ceased broadcasting in 1973. During KOET's life,

3751-433: The backward compatible NTSC standard led to these channels being released for any television use in 1952. Early receivers were generally less efficient at UHF band reception, and the signals are also subject to more environmental interference. Additionally, the signals are less susceptible to diffraction effects, which can improve reception at long range. UHF generally had less clear signals, and for some markets, became

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3872-516: The digital transition was completed in August 2011. Digital Audio Broadcasting , deployed on a very limited scale in Canada in 2005 and largely abandoned, uses UHF frequencies in the L band from 1452 to 1492 MHz. There are currently no VHF Band III digital radio stations in Canada as, unlike in much of Europe, these frequencies are among the most popular for use by television stations. In

3993-515: The federally mandated transition from analog to digital television . The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 28, using virtual channel 13. More than 80 retransmitters broadcast KSTU's signal throughout Utah and into portions of neighboring states. Repeater of KXLY-TV , Spokane, WA Repeater of KREM , Spokane, WA Repeater of KAYU-TV , Spokane, WA Repeater of KHQ-TV , Spokane, WA UHF television broadcasting UHF television broadcasting

4114-444: The 1930s with regular commercial broadcasting in cities such as New York and Chicago in 1941. Efforts at TV broadcasting on any channel were drastically curtailed once World War II began, due largely to lack of available receivers. The upper five VHF channels were removed from the FCC allocation list during the war with those frequencies re-allocated for military use, leaving thirteen channels (1 through 13) as of May 1945. The end of

4235-434: The 1970s or 1980s were often relegated to UHF, or (if they were to attempt to deploy on VHF) to reduced power or stations in outlying areas . Canada's VHF spectrum was already crowded with both domestic broadcasts and numerous American TV stations along the border. The use of UHF to provide programming that otherwise would not be available, such as province-wide educational services (BC's Knowledge: channel, or TVOntario -

4356-436: The 700 MHz band for cellular telephone service. In 2011, Channel 51 was removed to prevent interference with the 700 MHz cellular band. Additionally, in 2019 the US removed channels 38 through 50 to use them for cellular phone service. Thus UHF TV in the US now only includes channels 14 through 36. The most common type of antennas rely on the concept of resonance . Conductors, normally metal wires or rods, are cut to

4477-594: The 82 channels possible under the standard 6 MHz bandwidth. CBS Vice President Adrian Murphy told the FCC: "I would say that it would be better to have two networks in color" instead of the four or more networks possible with narrower bandwidths in UHF. In October 1948, the Federal Communications Commission stopped accepting applications for new stations, a freeze expected to last "six months to

4598-609: The 82 new UHF-TV stations in the United States broadcasting as of June 1954, only 24 of them remained a year later. The majority of the 165 UHF stations to begin telecasting between 1952 and 1959 did not survive. Not until the passage of the 1962 All-Channel Receiver Act did FCC regulations require all new TV sets sold in the U.S. to have built-in UHF tuners that could receive channels 14–83. Even though that requirement came into effect on April 30, 1964, there were only about 170 full-service UHF stations in operation in 1971. In

4719-438: The FCC allowed UHF broadcasters to operate at much higher power levels. For analog signals in the United States, VHF signals on channels 2 to 6, the low-VHF range, were limited to 100 kW, high-VHF on channels 7 to 13 to 316 kW, and UHF to 5 MW, well over 10 times the power of the low-VHF transmitter power limit. This greatly increased the cost of transmitting in these frequencies, both in electrical cost as well as

4840-489: The FCC granted a construction permit to Springfield Television, which had previously announced that channel 20 would be Utah's only independent station and only commercial UHF outlet. Office space in the Salt Lake International Center, west of the airport, was constructed, KSTU began broadcasting on October 24, 1978, with a programming lineup typical of independent stations and broadcasting from

4961-405: The FCC initially approved four drop-ins nationwide—including channel 13 for Salt Lake—having whittled down the number of proposed new channels in the preceding years. Its studies found that Salt Lake could support not one but two independent VHF outlets. Springfield Television, then still applying for a permit, asked for a chance to establish itself in the market before a VHF station was dropped in;

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5082-768: The Northstar group—put KSTU on the market. While multiple bidders, including Meredith Broadcasting and a group led by then-Fox executive Jamie Kellner , inspected the station, the Fox network itself purchased KSTU. Fox had just sold WFXT in Boston, meaning it had the ability to buy another station. The $ 41 million deal resulted in the first network-owned TV station in Utah. The sale's outcome led to long-running litigation. Mountain West's partners said that Northstar capitalized on their weakened position to squeeze them out of profits on

5203-823: The Tokyo region. Privately owned Japanese VHF TV stations were most often built by large national newspapers with Tokyo stations exerting a large degree of control over national programming. The number of VHF broadcasters varied depending on the prefecture. For example, in the Kanto region , there were seven VHF channels available. Outside of Tokyo, Osaka , Nagoya , and Fukuoka , most prefectures had four privately owned television stations, with three of them broadcasting on UHF. Almost all prefectures had at least one privately owned VHF television station (except for Saga ). The independent stations broadcast in analogue UHF, unlike major networks, which were historically broadcast primarily in analogue VHF . The loose coalition of UHF independents

5324-431: The US, the FCC initially wanted to move all stations to UHF. This would have required a large number of stations to move out of their current VHF channel assignments. Moving from one UHF channel to another is a fairly simple exercise and generally costs little to accomplish. Moving from VHF to UHF is a much more expensive proposition, generally requiring all new equipment, and a dramatic increase in power in order to maintain

5445-468: The United States, UHF stations gained a reputation for local ownership, nonprofessional operations, small audiences and weak signal propagation. While UHF-TV was available to American TV broadcasters in today's form since 1952, affiliates of the 1950s four largest American TV networks ( NBC , CBS , ABC , and DuMont ) preferentially transmitted on VHF wherever it was available. All available VHF-TV allocations were already in use in most large TV markets by

5566-406: The VHF band because of their bandwidth demands; more significantly, it offered the possibility for sufficient numbers of conventional 6 MHz channels to support the FCC's goals of a "truly nationwide and competitive service". CBS was not trying to maximize broadcast (or network) competition through freer market entry. Instead CBS's 16 MHz channels would have allowed only 27 UHF channels versus

5687-400: The VHF stations, losing $ 10,500,000 in 1953. More stations left the air than opened, and sixty percent of television industry losses from 1953 to 1956 came from UHF stations. TV network affiliations were difficult to get in many locations; the UHF stations with major-network affiliation would often lose these affiliations in favor of any viable new VHF TV station that entered the same market. Of

5808-494: The air and all were in working order. On March 18, 2020, a 5.7 magnitude earthquake occurred 3.7 miles (6 km) north-northeast of Magna, Utah , west of Farnsworth Peak. A number of radio and television stations experienced interruptions after power was lost on the mountain, but were able to return to air within seconds. Farnsworth Peak has generators for emergencies. [REDACTED] Media related to Farnsworth Peak at Wikimedia Commons KSTU KSTU (channel 13)

5929-539: The air in 1978 as the third attempt at an independent station in the Salt Lake City market. It was by far the most successful to date; it was the first independent in the market to last longer than two years. Broadcasting on channel 20, it was also the first commercial UHF outlet in the state. It was built by and named for Springfield Television , the Massachusetts-based firm that owned it. KSTU

6050-623: The analogue television switchoff on October 24, 2012, all digital terrestrial TV is on UHF only, although VHF allocations exist. The UHF band has been used in parts of Ireland for television deflector systems bringing British television signals to towns and rural areas that cannot receive these signals directly. However, since the introduction of free to air satellite transmission of UK TV channels these deflectors have largely ceased operation. In Japan, an Independent UHF Station ( ja:全国独立UHF放送協議会 , Zenkoku Dokuritsu Yū-eichi-efu Hōsō Kyōgi-kai , literally National Independent UHF Broadcasting Forum)

6171-431: The base assumption that a UHF television station was functionally equivalent to a VHF one. To allocate four to as many as seven VHF channels to each of the largest cities would mean forcing the smaller, intervening cities completely onto UHF channels, while an allocation scheme that sought to assign one or two VHF channels in each smaller city would force VHF and UHF stations to compete in most markets. The largest cities with

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6292-545: The case record filled 31 volumes, a jury awarded the partners a net total of $ 18 million in December 1998, but the Utah Supreme Court discarded the monetary award in 2001 and ordered another trial be held, finding that the trial judge had improperly instructed jurors. Under MWT, KSTU replaced KSL-TV as the exclusive broadcast television home of Utah Jazz basketball in 1988, having carried some Jazz games over

6413-617: The channel crowding problem, the following cities were never allocated any VHF-TV stations at all, due to technical reasons found by the FCC: Huntsville, Alabama ; Peoria, Illinois ; Fort Wayne, Indiana ; South Bend, Indiana , Lexington, Kentucky ; Springfield, Massachusetts ; Elmira, New York ; Youngstown, Ohio ; Scranton / Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania ; and Yakima, Washington . Other cites were able to receive only one VHF broadcast station. The entire state of New Jersey would receive only one VHF broadcast station of its own (which

6534-463: The collapse of the Sinclair merger, Nexstar Media Group announced its intention to purchase Tribune Media on December 3, 2018, for $ 6.4 billion in cash and debt. Due to Nexstar owning KTVX and KUCW , the E. W. Scripps Company agreed to purchase KSTU as part of $ 1.32 billion in overall divestments by Nexstar in order to meet regulatory approval. The sale was completed on September 19, 2019. In

6655-524: The commission, whose review board scheduled oral argument in the case. Mountain West Television retained the advice of Wiley Rein, a Washington, D.C., law firm. Wiley Rein attracted two other clients which had interest in channel 13. One was Northstar Communications, a Washington company financially backed by insurer Allstate . The Mountain West principals, with Northstar, formed MWT Limited Partnership; Northstar insisted that Mountain West buy out

6776-482: The complex over-lapping led to the fifth and final network having a significantly reduced national coverage compared to the other networks, with reduced picture quality in many areas and the use of wide-band aerials often required. The launch of digital terrestrial television in 1998 saw the continued use of UHF for television, with six multiplexes allocated for the service, all within the UHF band. Analogue transmissions have ceased completely since 2012 after which

6897-427: The conditions for Springfield to sell: the stations were sold together, the current management was retained, and the price was agreeable. The deal was closed in 1984. On October 9, 1986, the station became a charter affiliate of the new Fox network. However, like most early Fox affiliates, the station was still mostly programmed as an independent due to Fox's limited output. When the FCC allocated television channels,

7018-523: The conversion period was over. This adds some complexity to the system as a whole, as the antennas needed to receive VHF and UHF are very different. In Australia, UHF was first anticipated in the mid-1970s with TV channels 27–69. The first UHF TV broadcasts in Australia were operated by Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) on channel 28 in Sydney and Melbourne starting in 1980, and translator stations for

7139-624: The downside, higher frequencies are less susceptible to diffraction. This means that the signals will not bend around obstructions as readily as a VHF signal. This is a particular problem for receivers located in depressions and valleys. Normally the upper edge of the landform acts as a knife-edge and causes the signal to diffract downwards. VHF signals will be seen by antennas in the valley, whereas UHF bends about 1 ⁄ 10 as much, and far less signal will be received. The same effect also makes UHF signals more difficult to receive around obstructions. VHF will quickly diffract around trees and poles and

7260-482: The early 1990s, Elisabeth Murdoch , Rupert Murdoch 's daughter, served as programming manager. In 2000, when Fox Television Stations acquired the Chris-Craft Industries station group, it traded away ABC affiliate KTVX to keep KSTU. On June 13, 2007, Fox announced the sale of KSTU and seven other owned-and-operated stations to Local TV LLC , a subsidiary of Oak Hill Capital Partners . The sale

7381-563: The father of actor George Clooney , was the original news anchor. In addition to serving the Salt Lake market, the KSTU newscast was intended as a prototype for the development of similar newsrooms at mid-market Fox affiliates, and it also functioned as a test bed for Sony and Fox to test a new video camera system based on the Hi8 format. The Fox News at Nine debuted on December 31, 1991. It

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7502-556: The financing to outfit a new station, essentially forcing the company to buy KSTU for relocation. It was later reported that Adams was a client of Wiley Rein. To pay for the transaction, Mountain West borrowed $ 22.5 million; the deal included $ 10 million in a non-compete agreement with Adams. On November 2, 1987, with the new transmitter facility complete, KSTU's intellectual property (call letters, Fox affiliation, syndicated programming and staff) moved from channel 20 to channel 13. It also moved to channel 13 on local cable systems. Due to

7623-565: The first UHF originating station in Canada), Télé-Québec , French language programming outside Québec and ethnic/multilingual television services), has therefore become common. Third networks such as Quatre-Saisons or Global often will rely heavily on UHF stations as repeaters or as a local presence in large cities where VHF spectrum is largely already full. The original digital terrestrial television stations were all UHF broadcasts, although some digital broadcasts returned to VHF channels after

7744-411: The first and only pre-1950 UHF television station to operate on a regular daily schedule. Existing FCC rules at the time of the freeze had designated 42 UHF channels, designated 14–55, between 475–890 MHz. Ultimately, the question the FCC faced of how to allocate bandwidth for new television licenses would not take "months" to resolve, but several years. To newer entrants into TV broadcasting such as

7865-576: The first application was received from Utah Television Associates, whose principals included Salt Lake businessman Richard S. McKnight. David and Deanna Williams, owners of a paging service and an AM station in Bountiful , submitted a bid on March 10, 1981, under the name Intermountain Broadcasting. By May, when the commission set a deadline to receive other applications, the field had grown to eight with six further bidders: This made Salt Lake City

7986-483: The first commercial UHF television station on the air was KPTV , Channel 27, in Portland, Oregon , on September 18, 1952. Early in 1953, 35% of televisions sold contained a UHF tuner compliant with 1952 rules, lending hope to the idea that intermixture of UHF and VHF stations might succeed. Several problems with early UHF tuners became evident. One was poor image frequency rejection in superheterodyne receivers with

8107-489: The first of the four drop-ins to attract more than one application. By 1984, however, there were multiple applications in all four cities, and Salt Lake was the last of the four to receive a designation for comparative hearing among the applicants, on February 10, 1984. By that time, two of the eight applicants had dropped out. American Television had already won the channel 14 construction permit (which eventually materialized as KXIV in 1989), and Rocky Mountain Broadcasting

8228-464: The format. Gregorisch-Dempsey then left Salt Lake in 1994 to start a newsroom at KDAF in Dallas, which was eventually scrapped when Fox announced its plans to sell the station and move its affiliation. The half-hour newscast became an hour-long show in 1994. The mid-1990s saw the start of KSTU's expansion beyond prime time news coverage with the addition of noon and morning newscasts in 1996. While

8349-543: The foundation for a large emphasis on news. After Fox spun off its smaller owned-and-operated stations in 2007, KSTU has been owned in succession by Local TV LLC , Tribune Media , and Scripps. What would become the Salt Lake City market had an ignominious history with independent television before KSTU. Two attempts to operate independent stations on the VHF band in the late 1950s and early 1960s both fell through. KLOR-TV signed on in 1958 from Provo . However, poor transmitter site selection hindered reception for many viewers in

8470-465: The four major Salt Lake TV stations, far behind KSL and KUTV but well ahead of KTVX. Sinclair Broadcast Group entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media on May 8, 2017, for $ 3.9 billion plus the assumption of $ 2.7 billion in Tribune-held debt. As Sinclair already owned KUTV, KJZZ-TV , and KMYU in the market, the company offered to sell KSTU back to Fox Television Stations as part of

8591-601: The fourth, Etv. In the UK, UHF television began in 1964 following a plan by the General Post Office to allocate sets of frequencies for 625-lined television to regions across the country, so as to accommodate four national networks with regional variations (the VHF allocations allowed for only two such networks using 405 lines ). The UK UHF channels would range from 21 to 68 (later extended to 69) and regional allocations were in general grouped close together to allow for

8712-468: The group contended that a VHF station would not mean automatic failure for a new UHF. The FCC reaffirmed the decision on a 4–3 vote in 1980. The approval came even though KSTU and KSL-TV had expressed renewed concern over a high-power channel 13 in Salt Lake City causing problems for the translator system. While KSTU was busy building translators to extend channel 20's reach, interested parties were busy filing applications for channel 13. In December 1980,

8833-471: The home of smaller broadcasters who were not willing to bid on the more coveted VHF allocations. These issues are greatly reduced with digital television, and today most over-the-air broadcasts take place on UHF, while VHF channels are being retired. To avoid giving the impression that channels were disappearing, digital broadcast systems have a virtual channel concept, allowing stations to display their original VHF channel number while actually broadcasting on

8954-539: The independent UHF station phenomenon; a fictional UHF station was also parodied in the 1980 film Pray TV . Some cities did develop successful independent UHF stations, many of these located in or near state capital cities, or served by nearby major rural regions. These included Montgomery , Alabama ; Frankfort , Kentucky ; Dover , Delaware ; Lincoln , Nebraska ; Topeka , Kansas ; Jefferson City , Missouri ; Lansing , Michigan ; Harrisburg , Pennsylvania ; Madison , Wisconsin ; and Springfield , Illinois . In

9075-400: The late 1950s and early 1960s) and the fall in television prices saw most households use a UHF set by the end of that decade. With the second and last VHF television service having launched in 1955, VHF TV was finally decommissioned for good in 1985 with no plans for it to return to use. The launch of Channel 5 in 1997 added a fifth national television network to UHF, requiring deviation from

9196-566: The late 1990s, freeing up the frequency for other uses. UHF was not commonly used in the Klang Valley until 1994 (despite TV3's signal also being available over UHF Channel 29, as TV3 transmitted over VHF Channel 12 in the Klang Valley). 1994 saw the introduction of the channel MetroVision (which ceased transmission in 1999, got bought over by TV3's parent company – System Televisyen Malaysia Berhad – and relaunched as 8TV in 2004). This

9317-500: The license freeze enacted in 1949 to end. Through the entire three-and-a-half-year freeze period, KC2XAK remained the only UHF television station in regular operation. When the FCC television license freeze ended in 1952, a huge backlog of potential stations applied, many allocated to the UHF band as defined by the 1952 rules. The first commercially licensed UHF television station was WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts ; however,

9438-492: The manner in which the changeover was structured legally, the FCC reckons KSTU's current facility on channel 13 as a new license dating from 1987; it was issued a construction permit under the call letters KTMW on July 17 and changed its call letters to KSTU on November 9. The obligations incurred by the Mountain West partners were financially debilitating. In August 1989, Mountain West and Farragut Communications—part of

9559-464: The meantime, these shortcomings led to "UHF taboos", which in effect limited each metropolitan area to only moderately more UHF stations than VHF ones, despite the much higher number of channels. Television sets in the United States were not mandated to include UHF tuners until 1964. With UHF's reputation for reception problems, the fraction of new TV receivers that were factory-equipped with all-channel tuners dropped from 35% in early 1953 to 9% by 1958,

9680-538: The mid-1950s, owing to FCC spacing rules to avoid co-channel and adjacent channel interference between VHF TV stations in the same or nearby cities. Two VHF TV stations on the same channel needed to be 160 or more miles apart, and two VHF TV stations on adjacent channel frequencies needed to be 60 or more miles apart. UHF stations in major population centers of the United States were usually either educational network or independent TV stations. The movie UHF (starring "Weird Al" Yankovic and Michael Richards ) parodied

9801-497: The most sets in use benefitted most from VHF allocations. For example, New York City, Washington-Baltimore, Los Angeles, and San Francisco received seven VHF stations apiece, and Chicago was allocated five, with the other two of those channels going to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Rockford, Illinois . FCC rules published on April 11, 1952, defined the final modern-day UHF allocation of 70 channels, 14 through 83, with 6 MHz separation. It used standard NTSC standards. This would allow

9922-458: The neighbouring region. Initial uptake of UHF television was very slow: Differing propagation characteristics between VHF and UHF meant new additional transmitters needed to be built, often at different locations to the then-established VHF sites, and in general with a larger number of relay stations to fill the greater number of gaps in coverage that came with the new band. This led to poor picture quality in bad coverage areas, and many years before

10043-502: The noon newscast initially rated poorly, the morning news—now known as Good Day Utah —was expanded to a second hour the next year. With expansions of newscasts in a variety of time slots, KSTU was producing eight hours of news a day by 2012, ten hours by 2015, and 10 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours—part of 62 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours of news output a week—in 2016. The station's digital signal is multiplexed : KSTU shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 13, on June 12, 2009, as part of

10164-489: The opening of World War II . These were used in experimental television receivers in the UK in the 1930s, and became widely used during the war as radar receivers. Surplus tubes flooded the market in the post-war era. At the same time, the development of color television was taking its first steps, initially based on incompatible transmission systems. The US FCC set aside a block of the then-unused and now-practical UHF frequencies for color television use. The introduction of

10285-399: The order of $ 400,000). For this reason, channels in the high-VHF region were kept for television use. The power of the stations on these channels was also reduced, to 160 kW, about one-third of the earlier limit. Stations making the transition generally acquired a second channel allocation in the upper UHF region to test their new equipment, and then moved into the low-UHF or high-VHF once

10406-403: The original frequency allocation plan of the early 1960s and the allocation of UHF frequencies previously not used for television (such as UK Channels 35 and 37, previously reserved for RF modulators in devices such as domestic videocassette recorders , requiring an expensive VCR re-tuning programme funded by the new network). A lack of capacity within the band to accommodate a fifth service with

10527-483: The other applicants, leading to it obtaining the channel 13 permit. MWT then signed an agreement to purchase all of KSTU's non-license assets from Adams for $ 30 million in June 1987. Under the terms of the deal, MWT would operate channel 20 until the channel 13 facility was ready to be activated, after which it would surrender the channel 20 license. The Mountain West partners later said that Northstar had refused to provide

10648-471: The partners later described as coerced action coordinated by their legal counsel and financial backers, the company bought KSTU's intellectual property and moved it to channel 13 in November 1987 instead of building and staffing its own station. Between 1989 and 2007, KSTU was a Fox owned-and-operated station . In 1991, the station began producing local newscasts, which Fox and subsequent owners would use as

10769-450: The preceding four seasons. However, KSTU indicated that it would not renew the deal after 1993, due to Fox initiating programming seven nights a week. This resulted in KXIV being purchased by Jazz owner Larry H. Miller and becoming KJZZ-TV . Under Fox, KSTU began airing local news programming in December 1991, progressively expanding its offerings through the next 15 years. At one time in

10890-537: The prefectures of Iwate , Miyagi , and Fukushima were switched off on 31 March 2012. UHF broadcasting was used outside Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley by private TV station TV3 in the late 1980s, with the government stations only transmitting in VHF (Bands 1 and 3) and the 450 MHz range being occupied by the ATUR cellular phone service operated by Telekom Malaysia . The ATUR service ceased operation in

11011-450: The received energy immediately downstream will be about 40% of the original signal. In comparison, UHF blockage by the same obstruction will result on the order of 10% being received. Another difference is the nature of the electrical and radio noise encountered on the two frequency bands. UHF bands are subject to constant levels of low-level noise that appear as "snow" on an analog screen. VHF more commonly sees impulse noise that produces

11132-428: The roof and walls, electrical wiring, and the frames of doors and windows. A metal-framed window will present almost no barrier to a UHF signal, while a VHF signal may be attenuated or strongly diffracted. For stations with strong signals, UHF antennas mounted beside the television are relatively useful, and medium-distance signals 25–50 kilometres (16–31 mi) away can often be picked up by attic mounted antennas. On

11253-489: The sale to Fox. In 1990, they sued Wiley Rein for $ 20 million, which they calculated as the financial value if Northstar had financed their venture as a competing independent station. The case became one of the longest civil trials in Utah history; while a trial court initially dismissed the case, the Utah Court of Appeals ordered a trial be held in 1996. After a three-month trial in which 1,000 exhibits were presented and

11374-520: The same gain . For instance, Channel 2 in the North American television frequencies is at 54 MHz, which corresponds to a wavelength of 5.5 m, and thus requires dipole antenna about 2.75 m across. In comparison, the lowest channel in the UHF band, Channel 14, is on 470 MHz, a wavelength of 64 cm, or a dipole length of only 32 cm. A powerful VHF antenna using the log-periodic design might be as long as 3 m, while

11495-425: The same geographic area with a UHF transmitter requires a higher effective radiated power , implying a more powerful transmitter or a more complex antenna. However, the additional channels allow more broadcasters in a given region without causing objectionable mutual interference. UHF broadcasting became possible due to the introduction of new high-frequency vacuum tubes developed by Philips immediately prior to

11616-402: The same service area. DTV offsets the latter to a great degree, with the current FCC power limitations at 1 MW for UHF, 1 ⁄ 5 the former limits. Nevertheless, moving from a 100 kW low-VHF analog signal to a 1 MW UHF signal is still a considerable change, which some broadcasters estimated could cost up to $ 4 million per station (although most estimates were much lower, on

11737-500: The service achieved full national coverage. In addition to this, the only exclusively UHF service, BBC2, would run for only a few hours a day and run alternative programming for minority audiences in contrast to the more populist schedules of BBC1 and ITV. However the 1970s saw a large increase in UHF TV viewing while VHF took a significant decline: The appeal of colour, which was never introduced to VHF (despite preliminary plans to do so in

11858-450: The signal to correct for these errors. This works well with the type of constant low-level interference found on UHF, which FEC can effectively eliminate. In comparison, VHF noise is largely unpredictable, consisting of periods of little noise followed by periods of almost complete signal loss. Forward error correction cannot easily address this situation. For this reason, DTV broadcasting was initially going to take place entirely on UHF. In

11979-505: The sixth and the last, DWDZ-TV (channel 47) of the Associated Broadcasting Company in 1999, but it was silent in 2003. UHF channels in Metro Manila were used as an alternative to cable television which offered free programing for households in the target markets and became popular in the 1990s. Similarly, pay services were also introduced in late 1992, when DWBC-TV on channel 68 began initial transmissions as

12100-479: The south. KSL-TV was the first television station to use the mountain for broadcasting. It also is responsible for transmitters on the mountain, having engineers on site for periods of time in case of emergencies. A large number of the television stations located on the peak previously carried their analog signals from the same sites. Farnsworth Peak was one of the first places in the United States to construct

12221-465: The standard intermediate frequency of 45.75 MHz. Another was very poor adjacent-channel rejection and channel selectivity by early tuner designs and manufactures. These problems were so significant that UHF-TV stations in the same geographic area were usually assigned a minimum of six channels apart from one another. Technical problems with the design of vacuum tubes for operation at high UHF frequencies were beginning to be addressed in 1954, but in

12342-482: The state: KWCS-TV (channel 18) in Ogden, owned by the Weber County school system. The Springfield Television application came at a time when the Salt Lake market appeared "ripe" for a fourth station. By this time, two other events were occurring: another attempt was being made to restore channel 9 at Ogden to commercial status, and the FCC was also considering adding channel 13 to Salt Lake City. In March 1978,

12463-473: The station spacing guidelines meant that inserting channel 13 in Salt Lake City was not possible. In 1968, the FCC denied a petition by Salt Lake radio station KLUB to add channel 13 to Salt Lake City so it could apply to build a companion TV station, which would have required changes in unused VHF assignments in Richfield , Vernal, and Rock Springs, Wyoming . That petition was opposed by Great Desert, which at

12584-402: The time of the 1948 FCC freeze. With the knowledge that UHF channel allocation would be necessary to expand television coverage, and with the knowledge that by 1949 VHF television was an entrenched standard, the FCC proposed intermixture , licensing both VHF and UHF stations in a single city. Intermixture would rely on consumers rapidly adopting television sets with UHF tuning capability, and on

12705-692: The time was seeking channel 20; the Salt Lake VHF stations; and educational television interests in Utah, including KWCS-TV, who were concerned that a commercial station on channel 13 would affect the translators they used to rebroadcast their programming. The concept of VHF drop-ins—changes to station spacing that permitted the insertion of new VHF channel allocations in cities across the United States—continued to be of interest, particularly because, in other cities, there were not enough VHF television stations for all three major networks. In 1977,

12826-645: The total coverage area of the existing local stations. The first KSTU-owned translator, on Levan Peak serving Aurora , went into service in September 1979. Even though Washington County rejected KSTU's initial proposal when the station did not offer funding to connect KSTU into the county translator network, new translators continued to come into service for several years in areas such as Orangeville , Cedar City , and Vernal . Springfield Television reached an agreement to sell its entire group to Adams Communications in 1983 for $ 47.3 million. The Adams offer met

12947-410: The upfront cost of the equipment needed to reach those power levels. The introduction of digital television (DTV) changed the relative outcome of these effects. DTV systems use a system known as forward error correction (FEC) which adds information to the signal to allow it to correct errors. This works well if the error rate is well known, in which case a fixed amount of extra information is added to

13068-411: The use of aerials designed to receive a specific sub-band with greater efficiency than wider-band aerials could. Aerial manufacturers would therefore divide the band into over-lapping groups; A (channels 21–34), B (39–53), C/D (48–68) and E (39–68). The first service to use UHF was BBC2 in 1964 followed by BBC1 and ITV (both already broadcast on VHF) in 1969 and Channel 4 / S4C in 1982. PAL colour

13189-455: The vacated capacity was used for additional digital television services and put into alternative use, such as mobile telecommunications or internet services. Bandwidth for television in the United States was allocated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1937, solely in the VHF (Very High Frequency) band, across 18 channels. American television broadcasting began experimentally in

13310-514: The war brought rapid expansion in the nascent broadcast television industry. Thirteen VHF channels was found to be insufficient to support the desired expansion of broadcast television across the United States. Interference and channel crowding in densely populated areas (such as the eastern mid-Atlantic states) was a particular problem. This bandwidth crunch was made even worse by the need to re-allocate VHF Channel 1 to land-mobile radio systems in 1948 due to radio-interference problems. To illustrate

13431-423: Was converted entirely to digital UHF starting in December 2003, with all analogue television signals (both VHF and UHF) being terminated between 2010 and 2012. The analogue translators in northeastern Ishikawa Prefecture were shut down as part of a technical trial on 24 July 2010; analogue signals in the rest of that prefecture and 43 other prefectures were terminated on 24 July 2011. The analogue transmitters in

13552-485: Was finalized on July 14, 2008. Under Local TV LLC, KSTU bought the adjacent building to double its studio footprint to 26,000 square feet (2,400 m ), part of a construction project that also outfitted the station for high-definition news production. On July 1, 2013, the Tribune Company acquired Local TV for $ 2.75 billion; the sale was completed on December 27. That year, KSTU ranked third in revenue among

13673-426: Was flagging. While the more-established broadcasters were operating profitably on VHF channels as affiliates of the two largest TV networks (at the time, NBC and CBS), most of the original UHF local stations of the 1950s soon went bankrupt, limited by the range their signals could travel, the lack of UHF tuners in most TV sets and the paucity of advertisers willing to spend money on them. UHF stations fell quickly behind

13794-574: Was followed by Ntv7 in 1998 (also acquired by TV3's parent company in 2005) and recently Channel 9 (which started in 2003, ceased transmission in 2005, was also acquired by TV3's parent company shortly after, and came back as TV9 in early 2006). At current count, there are 6 distinct UHF signals receivable by an analog TV set in the Klang Valley: Channel 27 (8TV), Channel 29 (TV3 UHF transmission), Channel 37 (NTV7), Channel 42 (TV9), Channel 55 (TV Alhijrah) and Channel 39 (WBC). Channel 35

13915-416: Was impractical and uneconomic to require these well-established VHF users to move to other frequencies, such as the 300 MHz – 3 GHz UHF band. All of this made expansion of broadcast television channels into the UHF band inevitable, though the technology and broadcasting characteristics of UHF was at this time largely unproven. Even the television standard to use to broadcast on UHF was in question at

14036-403: Was introduced on UHF only in 1967 (for BBC2) and 1969 (for BBC1 & ITV). As a consequence of achieving maximum national coverage, signals from one region would typically over-lap with that of another, which was accommodated for by allocating a different set of channels in each adjacent area, often resulting in greater choice for viewers when a network in one region aired different programmes to

14157-412: Was leaking oil. The lightning strike of the tower also caused a failure of the waveguide switch control system, which caused it to display improperly. A waveguide switch is part of the transmission circuitry. An engineer on site was able to correct that situation within hours, but the combiner would not be working for a few more hours. By the next day, the problem had been fixed and the stations were back on

14278-405: Was no longer in contention by the time the hearing designation order was issued. FCC administrative law judge Edward Kuhlmann issued an initial decision in May 1985 that looked toward granting Salt Lake City Family TV the permit because of its superior proposal for the integration of ownership and management. With Glazer's application having been abandoned, the four other contestants objected to

14399-409: Was not the first 9 p.m. newscast in modern Utah television, as KXIV briefly aired a KSL-TV-produced newscast between October 1991 and September 1992. Clooney was dismissed in 1993 as part of a change in direction for the local newscast. These changes were driven by Lisa Gregorisch-Dempsey—later the producer of syndicated newsmagazine Extra —who was placed at KSTU by Murdoch and increased the pace of

14520-432: Was sold to Adams Communications in 1984 and affiliated with Fox at its launch in 1986. While KSTU was starting on channel 20, a decade-long proceeding began to assign VHF channel 13, which had been made available in Salt Lake City in 1980. Eight applicants submitted bids; Mountain West Television, a consortium of mostly local partners, emerged with the construction permit after buying out its competitors' interests. In what

14641-525: Was to ultimately become WNET 13 Newark ). Similarly, Delaware also had only one VHF station. Meanwhile, UHF broadcasting until 1949 was designated as experimental. In the fall of 1944, the Columbia Broadcasting System proposed a high-definition black and white system on the UHF band employing 750–1,000 scanning lines that offered the possibility of higher-definition monochrome and color broadcasting, both then were precluded from

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