WVPT

WVPT (channel 51) is a PBS member television station in Staunton, Virginia, United States, serving the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and West Virginia. It is a full-time satellite of Richmond-licensed WCVE-TV (channel 23) which is owned by the VPM Media Corporation. WVPT's offices are located at Lakeview Hall near the campus of James Madison University on Port Republic Road in Harrisonburg, while its transmitters are located atop Elliott Knob west of Staunton, on Carters Mountain south of Charlottesville, and on Massanutten Mountain near New Market. Master control and most internal operations are based at WCVE-TV's studios at 23 Sesame Street in Bon Air, a suburb of Richmond.

WVPT operates a second station, WVPY, licensed to New Market. WVPY was formerly a full-time satellite of WVPT which served Winchester and the upper Shenandoah Valley. Through a channel-sharing agreement, it now broadcasts from WVPT's transmitter as a satellite of Richmond's WCVW, using virtual channel 51.2.

History

WVPT signed on for the first time on September 9, 1968, under the ownership of the Shenandoah Valley Educational Television Corporation.

Transmitters

During its days as a separately programmed PBS station, WVPT was the smallest PBS station licensed to Virginia. It primarily serves 22 counties and independent cities in Virginia and nine counties in West Virginia, one of the largest coverage areas in the PBS system. Much of this area is very mountainous. Largely because most of its service area is located in the United States National Radio Quiet Zone, its two main transmitters operated at only 525,000 watts and 141,000 watts in analog—in both cases, fairly modest for a full PBS member on the UHF band. Even in digital, they are not nearly strong enough to cover this vast and rugged area.

WVPT's distributed transmission system allows the Charlottesville and New Market translators to rebroadcast digitally on the same frequencies as the parent stations under an experimental license. Digital DTS call signs are based on those of the respective main stations, suffixed with a sequential number. For instance, the transmitter in Charlottesville is seen on UHF channel 15, virtual channel 51.1, and with the callsign WVPT1-DT.[5]

WVPY operated translators in Fulks Run, Luray and Ruckersville; these were discontinued when WVPY moved its transmitter to WVPT's tower.

Spectrum reallocation

As part of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) 2016–17 spectrum reallocation auction, WVPY's channel 21 allocations were sold for $19,851,752.[6] The station and its distributed transmitters were to go off the air July 23, 2018, but the main transmitter is allowed to continue over-the-air operations by sharing the channel of another station. WVPY received two three-month extensions of the original January 23 deadline as it had difficulty finding a channel-sharing partner.[7][8][9]

WVPY filed a channel-sharing agreement with sister station WVPT on April 11, 2018. WVPY's over-the-air signal moved to WVPT's main transmitter in Harrisonburg and its distributed transmitters, effective June 11. Few in the area actually lost over-the-air PBS service, as the area is also covered by WETA-TV in Washington, D.C., West Virginia Public Broadcasting's W08EE-D in Martinsburg, and Maryland Public Television's WWPB in Hagerstown.[10] After the transfer, WVPY moved its license to New Market, as it would not cover Front Royal at all from WVPT's transmitter site.[11] As it now covers exactly the same areas as WVPT over-the-air, WVPY relays the programming of WCVW on virtual channel 51.2.[12][13]

callsign	WVPT
above	Satellite of WCVE-TV, Richmond, Virginia
city	Staunton, Virginia
branding	VPM PBS
digital	15 (UHF)‡R1R‡
virtual	51
affiliations	51.1: PBS for others, see
airdate	September 9, 1968
location	Staunton−Harrisonburg, Virginia
country	United States
callsign meaning	Western Virginia Public Television
former channel numbers	Analog: 51 (UHF, 1968–2009) Digital: 11 (VHF, 2001–2020), 12 (VHF, 2020–2023)
owner	VPM Media Corporation
former affiliations	NET (1968–1970)
erp	DTS1: 195 kW DTS2: 15 kW DTS3: 0.1 kW
haat	DTS1: 689 m DTS2: 333 m DTS3: 584 m
facility id	60111
coordinates	DTS1: 38.16511°N, -79.31392°W DTS2: 37.98333°N, -78.48361°W DTS3: 38.60108°N, -78.63244°W
licensing authority	FCC
website	https://vpm.org/

History

Technical information

Subchannels

Transmitters

Spectrum reallocation

Cable and satellite availability

External links

References