List of North American broadcast station classes Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === FCC service table === The United States [[Federal Communications Commission]] lists the following services on their website for television broadcasting: {| class="wikitable" |- ! Broadcast class ! Service ! Suffixes used or call sign examples |- | Television [[table of allotments|allotment]] (analog) | TA | An allocation of a frequency to a [[city of license]] for which no corresponding call sign or license has been assigned. FCC placeholder for possible future construction permits or frequencies allocated to non-US broadcast use. No call sign, identifier is a date (yymmdd) followed by a sequential two-letter value in the US FCC database. |- | Full-service TV (analog) | TV | '''-TV''' or '''none''' (such as "[[KRON-TV]]" and "[[KTLA]]") Since the shutdown of all full power analog stations in June 2009, used only for historical records. |- | Class A (analog) | CA | '''-CA''', or a translator-style call sign (such as "[[KTFB-CA]]") |- | Low-power station (analog) or translator | LP | '''-LP''', or a translator-style call sign (such as "[[KDMD-LP]]" and "[[K13IO]]" with the 2 digits denoting the channel of operation) |- | TV [[Broadcast translator#Boosters and distributed transmission|boosters]] | TB | Rare. These use the parent station's call sign plus a sequential number, such as [[WSTE|WSTE1]], [[WSTE|WSTE2]], [[WSTE|WSTE3]]. Nameplates for on-channel [[repeater]]s bear the parent station's call sign, followed by "booster".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr;sid=;rgn=div5;view=text;node=47%3A4.0.1.1.3;idno=47;cc=ecfr#47:4.0.1.1.3.7.3.12|title=US CFR 47 Part 74G - 74.733 UHF translator signal boosters.|website=gpoaccess.gov|access-date=2008-07-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305205415/http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr;sid=;rgn=div5;view=text;node=47:4.0.1.1.3;idno=47;cc=ecfr#47:4.0.1.1.3.7.3.12|archive-date=2012-03-05|url-status=dead}}</ref> See [[distributed transmission]]. If the station is digital, and has on-channel boosters, they would typically be named [[WSTE|WSTE-DT1]], [[WSTE|WSTE-DT2]], [[WSTE|WSTE-DT3]] and so on. |- | TV auxiliary (analog backup) service | TS | no specific suffix (uses same call sign as main transmitter) |- | NTSC (analog) petition for a channel change | NN | no specific suffix; uses same call sign as the station which made a request for a number/channel change (for NTSC/analog stations, and low-power repeaters, such as those registered as TX). |- | Digital Television<br />(full power) | DT | '''-DT''', '''-TV''' or '''none''' (such as [[KGLA-DT]], [[WSKY-TV]] or [[KOHD]]). Some stations formerly used '''-HD''', but this has become obsolete (though it may sometimes still be seen identifying the station's main subchannel in a [[Program and System Information Protocol|PSIP]] listing). The -DT suffix, optional for digital-only stations, was used primarily to distinguish a DTV transmission from an analog signal of the same broadcast (or is seen identifying the main subchannel of a station on a PSIP display); likewise, -TV is optional except if the eponymous radio stations exist. A similar suffix '''-DTV''', is used on all television stations in [[Japan]]. |- | Digital Class-A | CD | '''-CD''' (such as "[[WDNI-CD]]" and "[[WYYW-CD]]") Some stations briefly used '''-DC''' as well (this has since become obsolete). A scant few still use translator-style call signs with the '''-D''' suffix (such as "[[KBMT-LD|K36ID-D]]"). |- | Digital Low-power | LD | '''-LD''' or translator-style calls with '''-D''' suffix (such as "[[WBND-LD]]" and "[[W25AA-D]]"), occasionally no suffix (uses same call sign as main transmitter). Some stations briefly used '''-DL''' as well (this has since become obsolete). Some full-powered stations (such as [[WOIO]], [[WXMI]] and [[WLS-TV]]) have been granted approval for fill-in translators within their broadcast market to better cover outlying towns or heavily urbanied areas, particularly by stations with a VHF digital signal. These are technically -LD stations, but have the same call-sign as their parent station (such as WLS-TV or WOIO, and ''not'' as WLS-LD or WOIO-LD, though they could be considered as such for ease of differentiating the low-power repeater from its parent), similar to a Distributed Transmission System (but on different frequencies). |- | Digital [[special temporary authority]] (STA) | DS | no specific suffix; uses same call sign as station making a request for permission from the FCC to use a channel, power level or transmitter location not permanently allocated for one particular station. Temporary assignments retain, unmodified, the call sign of the corresponding permanent allocation; this includes translator-style calls (a format, such as W[[Channel 55 (disambiguation)|55]]<nowiki>ZZ</nowiki>-D, based on RF channel number plus a sequential identifier) even on those temporarily moving to another frequency. |- | Digital Television [[distributed transmission system]] (multiple transmitter sites) | DD | no specific suffix (uses same call sign as main transmitter); this is usually requested for a [[single-frequency network]] and to tailor coverage area to the needs of the viewers in the station's service area (such as covering towns and farmland, and not mountainous terrain or the ocean) |- | Digital auxiliary (backup) service | DX<br />(not to be confused with [[DXing]]) | no specific suffix (uses same call sign as main transmitter) |- | Digital [[rulemaking]] petition | DR | no specific suffix; uses same call sign as station making this request to add or modify a digital channel allocation |- | Land mobile use of a TV channel (TV RF channels 14-20 only) | LM | As "LM" is used in the FCC database to indicate reallocation of an entire channel, but not to identify individual users transmitting in that spectrum, a 6 MHz LM allocation does not itself carry a TV-style call sign. The spectrum of TV channels 14-20 is called "T-band" in LMR use.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?state=&call=&arn=&city=&chan=&cha2=69&serv=LM&type=0&facid=&list=1&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9|title=TV Query Results -- Video Division (FCC) USA|website=www.fcc.gov}}</ref> Repeaters that operate in such an allocation use a 3 MHz offset instead of 5 MHz as normally used in the 450-470 MHz range. |- | [[ATSC#ATSC 3.0|ATSC 3.0 Futurecast]] Experimental Broadcasts | EX | Used for officially licensed experimental [[4K resolution|4K]]/[[2160p]] [[Ultra HDTV]] broadcast stations, such as [[WRAL-TV]]'s UHDTV simulcast, WRAL-EX. |- |} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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