KWDK


KWDK, virtual channel 56, is a Daystar owned-and-operated television station serving Seattle, Washington, United States that is licensed to Tacoma. The station is owned by Community Television Educators, Inc., a subsidiary of Daystar parent company Word of God Fellowship. KWDK's transmitter is located on West Tiger Mountain near Issaquah. On cable, the station is available on Comcast Xfinity digital channel 18 in the Puget Sound area.

History

On July 17, 1992, the Federal Communications Commission issued a construction permit for channel 56 and call letters KWDK, to Christopher J. Racine. The license of the unbuilt station was sold to Puget Sound Educational TV, Inc. on October 6, 1999. KWDK signed on the air September 6, 2000 broadcasting the Daystar network.
KWDK was not the first station to broadcast on Channel 56 in the Tacoma market. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the Clover Park School District operated KPEC-TV, a PBS member station, on Channel 56. The school district ceased use of that channel when it purchased and briefly owned Tacoma's channel 13, which became known as KCPQ. It still retains those call letters to this day, as a commercial station affiliated with the Fox network under the ownership of Fox Television Stations.
On April 22, 2005, KWDK filed an application with the FCC for authorization to cease analog broadcasting and surrender its license for channel 56 prior to the end of the digital TV transition period, and thereafter operate KWDK-DT as a single channel, digital-only television station on channel 42. The FCC granted this authorization on July 20, 2005.
KWDK apparently ceased analog broadcasting on channel 56 sometime in April 2006. In August 2006, it was verified to be broadcasting on digital channel 42, making KWDK-DT the first digital-only broadcaster in the Seattle–Tacoma market, three years before all analog signals on full power TV stations were discontinued.

Digital television

Digital channel

Analog-to-digital conversion

KWDK shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 56, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 42, using PSIP to display KWDK's virtual channel as 56 on digital television receivers, which was among the high band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.