Northern Michigan dual TV channel ID

[Ben Zonia]

If you go through all the states in the TV Broadcasting Handbooks, you'll see that many places, not just Northern Michigan, have many satellite TV station operations to serve large areas with sparse population centers. It's a matter of economics for two stations to combine operations as satellites. Terrain holes didn't become a big problem until digital transmission limitations and most station operations on UHF, some on high VHF, and few on Low VHF. Many places, usually out West, had translators to cover remote areas. In the very early days of TV, stations all wanted to be Low VHF. Large cities often had Channels 2,4, and 5, others, just 3 and 6. They allowed water overlap on cochannels, allowing situations like WKZO-TV 3 and WTMJ-TV 3 severely interfering with each other during tropospheric events. Later reallotments corrected these short spacings over water.

Actually, Anita Longley and Phil Rice had already come up with their model with many factors considered when TV was very young, but the FCC had to come up with simpler models because computers were not widely available to use the other factors. The Longley Rice complex model is now readily available on interactive maps which show the shadow areas clearly, accessible through Rabbit Ears.

[Ben Zonia]

I agree that there should be translators to serve viewers in the Petoskey and Charlevoix regions.

These would do the job for WTOM and others. They should put four networks on one of the two like WBKB 11.

https://www.rabbitears.info/contour.php ... te=1&map=Y

https://www.rabbitears.info/contour.php ... te=1&map=Y

There are two translators at each site

[Jason Kragt]

These would do the job for WTOM and others. They should put four networks on one of the two like WBKB 11.

Since you bring up both WTOM and WBKB, in an ideal world, what would it be like if WTOM would have found themselves closer to Alpena? WBKB transmits all four networks, but only two are in high definition. I was just wondering what it would be like if 4 and 11 could serve the northeastern lower peninsula similar to how 8 and 10 serve the eastern upper peninsula--each with two networks in high definition. The Alpena area could view all four networks in high definition, along with perhaps a couple of other subchannels along for the ride. Combined with the existing PBS 6, that would give them a decent high-definition roster.

I guess a related question is how Alpena ever became its own media market instead of joining with the rest of the region. To me, that seems like a major disadvantage for them.

Would there be a way for three full-power transmitter locations to blanket the entire region (including Alpena) without excessive overlap? It always felt to me like transmitter locations are kind of a haphazard mess up there. It seems like a lot of legacy issues remain from the analog days. I'm guessing it is too late to do anything about it now, but always wondered what the ideal situation for that region would be knowing what we know now.

[Ben Zonia]

There were so many considerations that were in place when WTOM was authorized, and many are no longer applicable. As I've said before, being on analog Channel 4 allowed it to be seen far and wide, at least 10 miles beyond the Grade B contour. Hills were not nearly the problem because the frequency was so much lower. With digital, it's on Channel 16 now. It doesn't reach SSM with that, like someone else posted. It seems like Alpena used to watch NBC on WNEM Channel 5, and WTOM Channel 4 wasn't seen much until you got further North.

With the pairs of translators at Hudson Lookout and Good Hart, you could solve the problem of high definition for four networks.

I think that Channel 13 could be allotted to Alpena, but that would take a long time to get a coowned station approved and built. Not many owners would want to split the small market between owners just to get two high definition networks on each channel though.