Why are television networks differently numbered in different states?
In: 1
At one point, the goal was to make sure there was no (or very limited) interference.
If City A has channel 3, then city B, which is really close to A would not want channel 3 as well. There would be too much interference from the first station.
So it was important to find an available frequency with no interference. A channel may go out of business, but a station doesn’t want to change their channel number, so there might not be interference today, but the decision was made 20 years ago when different channels existed.
It’s not an issue today, as with digital TV, a station can broadcast on a different frequency. So today, there is a virtual channel, and an RF Chanel. When I turn on virtual channel 3.1, my TV might know that 3.1 is actually on RF Channel 9. So the antenna is searching for that frequency.
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