There Seems To Be Fog Over Portland

On September 20, 1952, Oregon’s first television station had the honor of being the first commercial television station to broadcast on the UHF band. KPTV (CH 27) made it as Oregon’s first television station. The year of 1952 must have been a good one.

Antennas were installed all over the city of Portland, as some refer to it as Fog Over Portland…

As Portland’s only television station at the time, it carried programming from all four networks. (It has operated on VHF Channel 12 since 1957.)

Radio waves in the UHF band travel almost entirely by line-of-sight propagation and ground reflection.

What was code-named as Operation Bridgeport went on the air on December 29, 1949, via KC2XAK. This was the world’s first UHF television station, recognized as WNBT (NBC 4).

Also, it was broadcasted on UHF Channel 24 in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Mind you this was an experimental project.

“The station used a 1 kW transmitter with a 20-dB gain antenna on a 210-foot (64 m) tower elevated 450 feet (140 m) above average terrain.”

After Operation Bridgeport was shut down by RCA and NBC on August 23, 1952, the transmitter and support equipment was dismantled in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The equipment was shipped via truck and fast freight train to Portland, Oregon.

KC2XAK was to be the first UHF station on the air, however it was an experimental station.

UHF channels are still used for digital television (DTV), and it wasn’t until the 1990’s that digital TV became a possibility.