WCTE (channel 22) is a

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

member

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

Cookeville, Tennessee Cookeville is the county seat and largest city of Putnam County, Tennessee, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was reported to be 34,842. It is recognized as one of the country's micropolitan areas, or smaller ...

, United States, serving the Upper Cumberland region. Owned by the Upper Cumberland Broadcast Council, the station originally had studios on the campus of

Tennessee Technological University Tennessee Technological University, commonly referred to as Tennessee Tech, is a public research university in Cookeville, Tennessee, United States. It was formerly known as Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, and before that as University of Dixie ...

within the west-side stadium construction of

Tucker Stadium Tucker Stadium is a 16,500-seat multi-purpose stadium in Cookeville, Tennessee. It is home to the Tennessee Technological University Golden Eagles team, and is named for former coach Wilburn Tucker (1920–1980). The football field is named ...

; after an extensive relocation effort, the studios are now located on East Broad Street in downtown Cookeville, adjacent to the Putnam County courthouse. Its transmitter is located northwest of

Monterey, Tennessee Monterey is a town in Putnam County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 2,850 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Cookeville, Tennessee Micropolitan Statistical Area. History Monterey is rooted in a settlement that developed around ...

. Although Cookeville is part of the

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, an ...

, the station also serves the western fringe of the

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's ...

market.

History

WCTE first signed on the air on August 21, 1978. It was the last in a series of stations launched by the

Tennessee Department of Education The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) is the state education agency of Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-larges ...

over a 12-year period, finally bringing public television to the last remaining part of the state that previously had little or no access to it. Some of the western parts of the viewing area could pick up the signal of Nashville's WDCN (now WNPT) when it broadcast on channel 2 from 1962 to 1973, but WDCN's move to the weaker channel 8 in 1973 left most of the territory without PBS service for five years. In 1984, the state relinquished WCTE and its other stations to community boards, such as the UCBC. The station, like its former sister stations

WLJT WLJT-DT (channel 11), branded on-air as West TN PBS, is a PBS member television station licensed to Lexington, Tennessee, United States, serving western and northwestern Tennessee. The station is owned by the West Tennessee Public Television Cou ...

, WSJK (now known as WETP) and WTCI, emphasizes programming of local interest in addition to carrying a full schedule of PBS programs. The community programming is particularly important because, being a rural, relatively isolated area, the Upper Cumberlands gets little or no coverage from commercial broadcasters in Nashville or Knoxville, the two major media markets nearest the area. For some time after the DTV transition in 2009, WCTE broadcast with an

effective radiated power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would hav ...

(ERP) of 57 kW with an antenna height of 412 meters. Then,
transmitter and antenna upgrade
early in 2011 increased ERP to 200 kW with an antenna height of 425 meters. WCTE'
over-the-air (OTA) signal
is receivable in much of Middle Tennessee and in some adjoining parts of South Central

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

WCTE shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 22, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 52, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its former analog-era UHF channel 22.

References

External links

Official websiteRabbitEars.Info - WCTE
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wcte CTE PBS member stations Television channels and stations established in 1978 1978 establishments in Tennessee Cookeville, Tennessee micropolitan area