WASA-LD

WASA-LD, virtual channel 24 (VHF digital channel 2), is a low-power Estrella TV-owned-and-operated television station serving New York, New York, United States that is licensed to Port Jervis. The station is owned by Estrella Media. The station's transmitter is located at 4 Times Square in Manhattan.

WASA briefly used virtual channel 64 to match its former analog channel number, then later changed its virtual channel to 24. It does not use its actual digital TV channel assignment on the air, because WNYE-TV calls itself Channel 25, its long-time analog channel number. WNYE-TV's digital channel is actually 24.

In April 2009, Venture Technologies, owner of WASA-LD, said it would sell the station to Burbank, California-based Liberman Broadcasting (which was renamed Estrella Media in February 2020, following a corporate reorganization of the company under private equity firm HPS Investment Partners, LLC) for $6 million, making New York the sixth market served by Liberman.^[1] The deal closed on March 1, 2010.

History[]

As W64AA[]

In the 1970s, the station signed on using UHF channel 64 as W64AA. The original owner was Metromedia. It was one of several television translators in New York City which operated at the upper end of the UHF television band in order to provide reliable coverage to sections of New York where reception was compromised by construction of the World Trade Center. This translator station relayed WNEW-TV (now WNYW), which at the time operated over VHF channel 5.

Originally, most New York City television stations operated their main transmitters from the Empire State Building. However, reliable reception was compromised for some viewers once the majority of the World Trade Center was constructed, thus necessitating the use of the UHF translators. In response, nearly all of the TV stations, including WNEW-TV, relocated to the North Tower of the World Trade Center in 1975.

In 1982, UHF channels 70 through 83 were decommissioned for use as television stations, and the frequencies were reassigned for the Advanced Mobile Phone System, an analog mobile phone system standard developed by Bell Labs which was officially introduced in the Americas in 1983. TV stations operating on these channels were either switched to other broadcast channels, sold, or deleted, depending on the owners' intentions.

While some stations, such as WPIX and WCBS-TV, continued broadcasting over relay translators by moving to lower channels, WNEW-TV ultimately decide to shut down channel 64. The allocation remained inactive for eighteen years, until channel 11 WPIX temporarily used channel 64 as a translator station in 2001, following the September 11 attacks. Within a few weeks, WPIX service over channel 11 was fully restored. The channel 64 allocation was once again deleted by the end of 2001.

Infomercials and Chinese programming[]

Two years later, W64CW was signed on over UHF channel 64 on January 30, 2003 by Venture Technologies. It originally operated with 30 watts, and its transmitter was located at a site just west of downtown Port Jervis, at the triangle where New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania meet. The call sign was changed on January 12, 2007 to WASA-LP. The station had planned to carry Estrella TV in September 2008, but that network was picked up instead by a subchannel of WPIX.

WASA had a problem: it appeared its signal would go off the air every few minutes and then turn back on, resulting in a tear-down pixelation visual effect. This was corrected when the station dropped the NYC Slideshow video airing on Virtual 64.2 since its DTV inception in favor of two new subchannels promoting a launch of English and Chinese feeds of ICN (Information Culture News) Channel.^[2]

Originally, WASA aired a looping rotation of five half-hour infomercials running 24 hours a day on its primary channel. Technically, the five shows each interspersed with the legal station ID were recorded on one DVD and played on a Philips DVD player (whose screensaver is seen when the loop ends and is not restarted). The infomercials included Nu-Wave Oven, TriVita Super B-12, Sweet Soul of the '70s, Montel William's Living Well Health Master Blender, and The H₂O Ultra Steam Mop. This looping rotation was ceased in January 2011. On April 22, 2011, the looping infomercial programming was restored.

Digital television[]

Digital channels[]

Analog-to-digital conversion[]

As a low-power station, WASA-LP was not required to turn off its analog signal on June 12, 2009, which was the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations.^[3]

WASA-LP has since built its digital transmitter, and flash-cut its operations on digital channel 25 in 2010. The station is broadcasting from the Condé Nast Building in Manhattan, with its call sign changed to WASA-LD.^[4]

The ICN (Information Culture News) Channel, a Chinese-American channel, was expected to begin broadcasting on 64.2 in English and 64.3 in Chinese^[5] in October 2010. That programming actually launched on February 23, 2011.

IAVC also launched on 24-3. Between its launch and February 25, 2011, a technical problem existed in which only the audio for this service aired on 24-3 with an EBU test pattern. This has since been corrected.

WASA-LD began identifying itself as WASA 24-1 and 24-4, ICN 24-2 and IAVC 24-3 through PSIP.

On April 22, 2011, the looping infomercial programming was restored to WASA 24-1 and 24-4. 24-2 was renamed ICNCH. 24-3 was renamed ICN TV. A fourth sub channel was added, relaying Estrella TV as WASA SD.

In 2015 two new subchannels were added: 24-4 Sinovision and 24-3 Sinovision English Channel. WASA SD moved to a fifth sub-channel relaying Estrella TV. Eventually, infomercial programming on 24-1 was switched to a high-definition broadcast of Estrella TV, with the standard definition broadcast continuing on 24-5.

On March 5, 2018, WWOR-TV was reassigned to channel 25 from channel 38 after the Spectrum auction in 2017. Due to the reassigned channel, WASA-LD has no plans to share or move the channel, which is no longer viewable. This is the first time the low-digital station has been removed without further notice being shown on their channel frequency prior to WWOR-TV's move on channel 25. Currently WASA-LD and other subchannels are still available on cable. It has yet to plan to move this new digital channel frequency.

References[]

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXRWaRB9tHc
• https://www.youtube.com/?reload=7&rdm=zrezq2uz#/watch?v=dXeISIe5UHM

External links[]

• WASA-LD official website
• WASA in the FCC TV station database
• BIAfn's Media Web Database — Information on WASA-LD