WYDN (channel 48) is a religious television station licensed to Lowell, Massachusetts, United States, broadcasting the Daystar Television Network to the Boston area. It is owned and operated by the Educational Public TV Corporation, a subsidiary of Daystar sister company Word of God Fellowship, Inc. WYDN's studios are co-located with those of local public access channel Dedham TV on Sprague Street in Dedham, and it shares transmitter facilities with Concord, New Hampshire–licensed Ion Television station WPXG-TV (channel 21) on Fort Mountain near Epsom, New Hampshire.
| |
|---|---|
| City | Lowell, Massachusetts |
| Channels | |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations | Daystar |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| History | |
First air date | May 5, 1999 (in Worcester, Massachusetts; license moved to Lowell in 2018[2]) |
Former channel number(s) |
|
| Prime Time Christian Broadcasting (1999–2001) | |
Call sign meaning | backronym for Your Daystar Network (pre-dated ownership and existence of Daystar; call sign sequentially assigned by the FCC in 1989[3][a]) |
| Technical information[4] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 18783 |
| ERP | 80.6 kW |
| HAAT | 342 m (1,122 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 43°11′4″N 71°19′10″W / 43.18444°N 71.31944°W |
| Translator(s) | W26EU-D Boston |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
History
editThe station first signed on the air on May 5, 1999, as an affiliate of Prime Time Christian Broadcasting (now God's Learning Channel) as a straight simulcast of KMLM in Odessa, Texas.[5] Originally licensed to Worcester, Massachusetts, WYDN operated its analog transmitter atop Asnebumskit Hill in Paxton (a site which is and has been used by Worcester area FM and TV stations since FM pioneer Edwin Howard Armstrong erected the tower in the 1940s) until the June 12, 2009, digital transition; its digital transmitter operated from the WBZ-TV tower in Needham. By the early 2000s, the station switched to Daystar after it was acquired by its Word of God Fellowship, Inc. licensing subsidiary, and Daystar immediately pushed for successful must-carry carriage from local cable providers.
WYDN sold its frequency rights as part of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s 2017 spectrum incentive auction[6] and reached a channel sharing agreement with Ion Television O&O WPXG-TV;[1] it began broadcasting from WPXG's transmitter on April 23, 2018.[7] As WPXG's broadcasting radius does not cover Worcester, WYDN changed its city of license to Lowell, Massachusetts.[2]
Technical information
edit| License | Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WPXG-TV | 21.1 | 720p | 16:9 | ION | Ion Television |
| 21.2 | 480i | Mystery | Ion Mystery | ||
| 21.3 | Laff | Laff | |||
| 21.4 | Bounce | Bounce TV | |||
| 21.5 | IONPlus | Ion Plus | |||
| 21.6 | Get TV | Get | |||
| 21.8 | HSN2 | HSN2 | |||
| WYDN | 48.1 | WYDN | Daystar |
Analog-to-digital conversion
editWYDN shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 48, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 47,[9] using virtual channel 48.
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ Other stations assigned call signs that same day include WYDC in Corning, New York, and WYDO in Greenville, North Carolina.
References
edit- ^ a b WYDN-WPXG-TV CSA
- ^ a b WYDN Form 2100 - Community of License Change
- ^ "For the Record" (PDF). Broadcasting. October 23, 1989. p. 96. ProQuest 1014732522. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 8, 2021. Retrieved August 12, 2023 – via World Radio History.
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WYDN". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ "North East RadioWatch: May 21, 1999". www.bostonradio.org.
- ^ "Here are the local TV stations selling their broadcast frequencies". The Boston Globe. Boston, Massachusetts. April 13, 2017.
- ^ "Explanation of Circumstances - Channel Share (WYDN)". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission. April 20, 2018. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
- ^ "RabbitEars TV Query for WPXG". RabbitEars. Archived from the original on July 31, 2018. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
- ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved March 24, 2012.