WKBS-TV (channel 47) is a

religious television station Religious broadcasting, sometimes referred to as faith-based broadcasts, is the dissemination of television and/or radio content that intentionally has religious ideas, religious experience, or religious practice as its core focus. In some coun ...

Altoona, Pennsylvania Altoona ( ) is a city in Blair County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 43,963 at the time of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Altoona Metropolitan statistical area, metropolitan area, w ...

, United States,

owned and operated In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...

Cornerstone Television The Cornerstone Television Network is a non-commercial Christian broadcast and satellite television network based in Wall, Pennsylvania, United States. Its founder was Russ Bixler. The network has 44 full-power and 57 low-power affiliate stati ...

. The station's transmitter is located in Logan Township. WKBS-TV operates as a full-time

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

of Cornerstone's

flagship station In broadcasting, a flagship (also known as a flagship station or key station) is the broadcast station which originates a television network, or a particular radio or television program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyal ...

, Greensburg-licensed

WPCB-TV WPCB-TV (channel 40) is a television station licensed to Greensburg, Pennsylvania, United States, serving the Pittsburgh area as the flagship of the religious network Cornerstone Television. Cornerstone originates most of its programs from this ...

(channel 40), whose studios are located in

Wall, Pennsylvania Wall is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 519 at the 2020 census. History Wall is located at the site of a farm purchased by James Walls in 1829. The property, on the south bank of Turtle Creek, was ...

. WKBS-TV covers areas of West-Central Pennsylvania that receive a marginal to non-existent over-the-air signal from WPCB-TV, although there is significant overlap between the two stations' contours otherwise. WKBS-TV is a straight

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultaneously) ...

of WPCB-TV; on-air references to WKBS-TV are limited to

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(FCC)-mandated hourly

station identification Station identification (ident, network ID, channel ID or bumper (broadcasting), bumper) is the practice of radio and television stations and broadcast network, networks identifying themselves on-air, typically by means of a call sign or brand na ...

s during programming. Besides the transmitter, WKBS-TV does not maintain any physical presence in Altoona, and unlike its parent station, it does not broadcast in

high definition High definition or HD may refer to: Visual technologies *Blu-ray Disc, the universal optical High Definition disc format *HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format *HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tap ...

and has a different

subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compressi ...

lineup encompassing the

Ion Media Ion Media, LLC (formerly known as Paxson Communications Corporation and Ion Media Networks) is a subsidiary of the E.W. Scripps Company that operates the linear broadcast networks Ion Television, Ion Mystery, and Ion Plus. Prior to its acquis ...

networks carried in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

Ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...

owned-and-operated station

WINP-TV WINP-TV (channel 16) is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the Ion Television network. Owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, the station maintains tran ...

(channel 16).

History

In 1983, Cornerstone Television was granted a

construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...

for channel 47 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, to serve the Johnstown–Altoona market. It bought the transmitter used by the original

WKBS-TV WKBS-TV (channel 47) is a religious television station in Altoona, Pennsylvania, United States, owned and operated by Cornerstone Television. The station's transmitter is located in Logan Township. WKBS-TV operates as a full-time satellite o ...

(channel 48) in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

when that station went dark in 1983, and used this transmitter to put channel 47 on the air November 2, 1985, reusing the WKBS-TV call sign.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource— ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

WKBS-TV shut down its analog signal, over

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

channel 47, 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 remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 46, using

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered as digits on a receiver's ...

47.CDBS Print
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References

External links

* 1985 establishments in Pennsylvania Bounce TV affiliates Court TV affiliates Dabl affiliates Ion Plus affiliates Ion Television affiliates Religious television stations in the United States Television channels and stations established in 1985 KBS-TV {{Pennsylvania-tv-station-stub