astronomy

KGCW

KGCW is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand KGCW rather than just read about it. In short: KGCW (channel 26) is a television station licensed to Burlington, Iowa, United States, serving as the CW network outlet for the Quad Cities area. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CBS affiliate WHBF-TV (channel 4) and co-managed with Fox affiliate KLJB (channel 18); Nexstar's Tegna subsidiary owns ABC/MyNetworkTV affiliate WQAD-TV (channel 8).

Key takeaways

KGCW belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect KGCW to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of KGCW from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

KGCW (channel 26) is a television station licensed to Burlington, Iowa, United States, serving as the CW network outlet for the Quad Cities area. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CBS affiliate WHBF-TV (channel 4) and co-managed with Fox affiliate KLJB (channel 18); Nexstar's Tegna subsidiary owns ABC/MyNetworkTV affiliate WQAD-TV (channel 8). KGCW, WHBF-TV and KLJB share studios in the Telco Building on 18th Street in downtown Rock Island, Illinois; KGCW's transmitter is located near Orion, Illinois. Channel 26 began broadcasting as KJMH, a local station for Burlington, in January 1988 and became a Fox affiliate that July. It was owned by local businessman Steve Hoth, who named it for his wife, JoEllen M. Hoth. In May 1994, the station lost access to Fox programming after the network moved to strip KJMH of its affiliation. It then went off the air that November. Grant Communications acquired the station and returned it to the air on March 1, 1996, rebroadcasting KLJB-TV in Davenport. In January 2001, channel 26 was split from channel 18 to become the affiliate of The WB in the Quad Cities, where it was seen on cable and a subchannel of KLJB, and its transmitter was relocated from Burlington to a site that offered increased coverage of the Quad Cities. The station became affiliated with The CW in 2006 when The WB and UPN merged. Nexstar acquired the Grant stations in 2014, coinciding with the separate purchase of WHBF-TV.

History

KJMH: The Hoth years Burlington Broadcast Company, which was owned by local businessman Steve Hoth, obtained a construction permit for a new television station in Burlington in 1984. The station went unbuilt for three years. An intended November 1987 launch was scrapped because of equipment problems. KJMH—named for JoEllen M. Hoth, Steve's wife—began broadcasting on January 5, 1988. The station, airing a mix of independent station programming and (for a time) a local newscast, represented a $1 million investment. It broadcast with an effective radiated power of 200,000 watts from a transmitting facility at Roosevelt Avenue and Winegard Drive in Burlington, sufficient only to reach the Burlington area: Mount Pleasant sat on the edge of the contour, and cities such as Keokuk and Muscatine were outside of its signal range. Even though KJMH affiliated with Fox on July 31, 1988, financial precarity was a major issue in the station's early history. Amid reports that the station's payroll checks were bouncing, the general manager resigned in 1991. Two years later, in November 1993, Fox moved to strip KJMH of its affiliation. Hoth hired a Chicago law firm to fight the disaffiliation in court but was unsuccessful, and KJMH ceased airing Fox programming in May 1994. The station then aired programming from home shopping service ValueVision and Channel America, which had historically catered to low-power stations. In November 1994, Hoth announced the sale of 80 percent of the station to Kelley Broadcasting for $405,000; Kelley, a consortium of investors based in Texas, planned to affiliate KJMH with the forthcoming UPN network. Additionally, it was announced that the station would leave the air for four to six weeks for equipment installation and refurbishing. Channel 26 did not return after the four-week period of silence, and financial questions continued to swirl. In February 1995, the law firm that had been hired to fight KJMH's disaffiliation sued for nonpayment. Hoth would later file bankruptcy for Burlington Broadcasting and a related company in October 1996; the then-former licensee of the station owed more than $444,000 against $38,000 in assets.

Grant Broadcasting ownership The Kelley sale was never filed with the FCC; instead, in March 1995, Grant Broadcasting filed to purchase KJMH from Hoth for $400,000. The station was restored to service on March 1, 1996, as a full-time rebroadcaster of Grant-owned KLJB-TV, the Fox affiliate in Davenport. Grant Broadcasting intended to eventually air separate programming on the station from the start. KLJB-TV had previously acquired the rights to programming from The WB in the Quad Cities market in September 1999 as a result of Superstation WGN ceasing carriage of WB programming nationally; selected WB shows aired in late night time slots on channel 18. In January 2001, The WB programming moved from a secondary affiliation on KLJB–KJMH to channel 26 alone, which was added to Quad Cities cable systems and changed its call sign to KGWB-TV. Initially, KGWB-TV broadcast its own programming for half of the broadcast day, continuing to air KLJB-TV's programming in other time slots. While branded as channel 26, the Burlington signal was so far from the Quad Cities that another station was allowed to operate on the channel: low-power WBQD-LP debuted in 2002 as the Quad Cities area's UPN affiliate. KGWB-TV programming was made available over-the-air in the Quad Cities as early as 2003 as a subchannel on KLJB-TV's digital signal. After splitting channel 26's programming, Grant invested in a relocation of the KGWB-TV transmitter facility from Burlington to Seaton, Illinois, midway between Burlington and the Quad Cities, to increase the station's availability in the more populous Quad Cities area. KGWB-TV became the local affiliate of The CW in 2006, upon the merger of The WB and UPN, under new KGCW-TV call letters.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with KGCW

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what KGCW claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to KGCW before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about KGCW ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of KGCW

In research: KGCW appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses KGCW in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: KGCW is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1988 establishments in Iowa, ATSC 3.0 television stations, Burlington, Iowa, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for KGCW outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study KGCW in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what KGCW means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain KGCW out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is KGCW in simple terms?

Why does KGCW matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study KGCW?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on KGCW.