Microwave Spectrum Channels
In the U.S. there are ten ENG video channels set aside in each area for terrestrial microwave communications. Use of these channels is restricted by Federal regulations to those holding broadcast licenses in the given market. Channels 1 to 7 are in the 2 GHz band and channels 8,9 and 10 are in the 2½ GHz band. In Atlanta for example, there are two channels each for the four news TV stations (WSB-TV, WAGA, WXIA-TV, WGCL-TV), one for CNN, and another open for other users on request, such as GPB.
Traditionally, the FCC has assigned microwave spectrum based on historic patterns of need and through the application/request process. With the other uses of radio spectrum growing in the 1990s, the FCC made available some bands of spectrum as unlicensed channels. This included spectrum for cordless phones and wi-fi. As a result, some of these channels have been used for news gathering by websites and more informal news outlets. One major disadvantage of unlicensed use is that there is no frequency coordination, which can result in interference or blocking of signals.
Read more about this topic: Electronic News-gathering
Famous quotes containing the words microwave and/or channels:
“The New Age? It’s just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds.”
—James Randi (b. 1928)
“People between twenty and forty are not sympathetic. The child has the capacity to do but it can’t know. It only knows when it is no longer able to do—after forty. Between twenty and forty the will of the child to do gets stronger, more dangerous, but it has not begun to learn to know yet. Since his capacity to do is forced into channels of evil through environment and pressures, man is strong before he is moral. The world’s anguish is caused by people between twenty and forty.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)