WDSE


WDSE, virtual and VHF digital channel 8, is a Public Broadcasting Service member television station licensed to Duluth, Minnesota, United States, serving northeastern Minnesota, northwestern Wisconsin, and the far western portion of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The station is owned by the Duluth–Superior Area Educational Television Corporation. WDSE's studios are located on rented space at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and its transmitter is located west of downtown Duluth in Hilltop Park.
WRPT in Hibbing, Minnesota operates as a full-time satellite of WDSE; this station's transmitter is located at Maple Hill Park south of Hibbing. WRPT covers areas of Minnesota's Iron Range that receive a marginal to non-existent over-the-air signal from WDSE, although there is significant overlap between the two stations' contours otherwise. WRPT is a straight simulcast of WDSE; on-air references to WRPT are limited to Federal Communications Commission -mandated hourly station identifications during programming. Aside from the transmitter, WRPT does not maintain any physical presence locally in Hibbing.

History

WDSE first went on the air on September 13, 1964 as the second educational station in Minnesota. The founding general manager was George Beck, former principal of Duluth Central High School, who had led the campaign for educational television in the Twin Ports for over a decade.
The station originally operated from the Bradley Building in downtown Duluth. When the building was condemned to make room for Interstate 35, UMD offered the station space on campus for a new studio. WDSE moved to its current facility in 1978. It is named the Sax Brothers Memorial Communications Center in honor of the brothers of Duluth physician Milton Sax, who gave the initial $200,000 bequest for the project.
In November 1982, WDSE was the first Minnesota television broadcaster to utilize a circularly polarized broadcast antenna, and in April 1985 it was the first in Minnesota to begin full-time stereo television broadcasting. Its digital signal first went on the air on April 28, 2003, and in May 2003, WDSE became the first broadcaster in Minnesota to launch a channel, 8.2 PBS-HD, fully devoted to high-definition programming. In June 2008, WDSE became the first station in the Duluth–Superior market to begin producing local programming in high definition. WDSE/WRPT was the first station in the Duluth–Superior market to begin broadcasting in 5.1 Dolby surround sound starting June 12, 2009. On June 16, 2009, WDSE-TV/DT officially changed the station's call sign to simply WDSE, dropping the "TV" or "DT" at the end of the call sign.
WRPT began broadcasting December 27, 2008 utilizing a directional antenna that beams the signal across the Minnesota Iron Range communities. Much of this area had been among the few areas without a clear over-the-air signal from a PBS station; Iron Range viewers had only been able to watch WDSE when cable arrived in the area in the 1970s. WRPT was one of the first of two construction permits ever granted by the FCC as a "digital singleton" facility; making it a rare ground-up digital only station that had no analog counterpart. On March 1, 2010, WRPT-DT officially changed the station's call sign to simply WRPT dropping the "DT" at the end of the call sign.
In late August 2010, WDSE was rebranded from PBS eight to PBS North to reflect their extended coverage with WRPT into more of northeastern Minnesota.

Digital television

Digital channels

The stations' digital signals are multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
8.1
31.1		720pWDSEpbs
WRPTpbs		Main programming / PBS
8.2
31.2		480i → 720pWDSE2nd
WRPT2nd		PBS Explore / World Channel
8.3
31.3		480i → 720pWDSEcrt
WRPTcrt		Create
8.4
31.4		480iWDSEmn
WRPTmn		Minnesota Channel
8.5
31.5		480iWDSEkids
WRPTkids		PBS Kids

Analog-to-digital conversion

WDSE discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 8, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 38 to VHF channel 8.

Translator station

The translator is owned by Koochiching County. The last translator owned directly by WDSE was K67CT in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Rather than move from channel 67 to a channel between 2 and 51 as required to comply with the digital television transition in the United States, the translator was taken off the air December 1, 2011.

Programming

Along with programming from PBS, Minnesota Public Television and PBS Wisconsin, locally produced programs such as Minnesota Legislative Report, WDSE Cooks, Almanac North, Venture North, Native Report, Great Gardening, Lawyers on the Line, and Doctors on Call are area favorites included in the broadcast schedule. WDSE produces, broadcasts, and supplies to the networks an intensive schedule of local and regional programming.
During the school year, WDSE airs educational/instructional programming from PBS Wisconsin from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. during daytime hours, and the overnight "block feed" for pre-recording purposes from 1 a.m. to 3 a.m.
In addition to regular television programming, WDSE broadcasts computer data on a full-time basis, a service called "datacasting." The stream consists of Datacast Wisconsin, a service of PBS Wisconsin. One Mbps of WDSE's 19.3 Mbit/s digital stream is devoted to Datacast Wisconsin.