Broadcasters Face Complex Repack

摘要

ALEXANDRIA, VA.-The United States is at the cusp of yet another television spectrum repacking operation. This makes number three, if you count the first TV broadcast spectrum reallocation in 1940 (although there weren't really that many stations then). There was the big upset beginning in 1952 when the FCC's four-year "freeze" on new station applications ended; nearly a third of the 108 stations then on the air had to shift frequencies. And of course we all remember the 2009 repack. (The loss of channels 70-83 to land mobile a few decades earlier doesn't really count, as by that time there wasn't much TV broadcast activity up there.)