computer science

WCAU

WCAU is a computer science 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 WCAU rather than just read about it. In short: WCAU (channel 10) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, serving the Delaware Valley. It is owned and operated by the NBC television network through its NBC Owned Television Stations division.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

WCAU (channel 10) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, serving the Delaware Valley. It is owned and operated by the NBC television network through its NBC Owned Television Stations division. Under common ownership with Mount Laurel, New Jersey–licensed Telemundo outlet WWSI (channel 62) and regional sports network NBC Sports Philadelphia, both WCAU and WWSI share studios in the Comcast Technology Center on Arch Street in Center City, with some operations remaining at their former main studio at the corner of City Avenue and Monument Road in Bala Cynwyd. The stations broadcast from the same transmitter in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia.

History

As a CBS station (1946–January 1995)

In 1946, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin secured a construction permit for channel 10, naming its proposed station WPEN-TV after the newspaper's WPEN radio stations (950 AM), now WKDN, and 98.1 FM, later WCAU-FM and now WOGL. The picture changed dramatically in 1947, when The Philadelphia Record folded. The Bulletin inherited the Record's "goodwill", along with the rights to buy the radio station WCAU (1210 AM, now WPHT) and the original WCAU-FM (102.9 FM, now WMGK) from their longtime owners, brothers Isaac and Leon Levy. The Bulletin sold the less-powerful WPEN and WCAU-FM, with the latter being renamed WPEN-FM; it is now WMGK. The Bulletin kept its FM station, renaming it WCAU-FM to match its new AM sister. The newspaper also kept its construction permit for channel 10, renaming it WCAU-TV. WCAU-TV went on the air March 1, 1948, as Philadelphia's third television station with an initial test pattern on Channel 10. It carried its first CBS network show on a "sneak preview" basis on March 3, but the official opening of the station was not until May 23, 1948. It secured an affiliation with CBS through the influence of the Levy brothers, who continued to work for the newspaper as consultants. WCAU radio had been one of CBS' original 16 affiliates when the network launched in 1927. A year later, the Levy brothers persuaded their brother-in-law, William S. Paley, to buy the struggling network. The Levy brothers were shareholders and directors at CBS for many years. Due to this long relationship, channel 10 signed on as CBS's third television affiliate. In the late 1950s, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) collapsed northern Delaware, South Jersey, and the Lehigh Valley into the Philadelphia market. The Bulletin realized that channel 10's original tower, atop the PSFS Building in Center City, was not nearly strong enough to serve this larger viewing area. In 1957, WCAU-TV moved to a new 1,200-foot (366 m) tower in Roxborough, which added most of Delaware, the Jersey Shore and the Lehigh Valley to its city-grade coverage. Also in 1957, the Bulletin formed a limited partnership with the Megargee family, owner of CBS affiliate WGBI-TV (channel 22) in Scranton. As part of the deal, channel 22's call letters were changed to WDAU-TV (WDAU's call letters were changed again to WYOU in 1986). Soon afterward, the FCC ruled that the Bulletin could not keep both stations due to a large signal overlap in the Lehigh Valley. Although the Bulletin had only bought a minority stake in channel 22, the FCC ruled that this stake was so large that the two stations were effectively a duopoly. The Bulletin could not afford to get a waiver to keep both stations, so it opted to keep its stake in WDAU-TV and sell the WCAU stations to CBS. CBS had to seek a waiver to buy the WCAU stations, as the signals of WCAU's AM and television stations overlapped with those of WCBS radio and WCBS-TV in New York City (in the case of the AM outlets, both were clear-channel stations; the FCC at the time usually did not allow common ownership of clear-channel stations with overlapping nighttime coverage areas). However, in its application for a waiver, CBS cited NBC's then-ownership of WRCV-TV in Philadelphia (channel 3, now KYW-TV) and WRCA-TV in New York City (now WNBC). The FCC readily granted the waiver, and CBS took control in 1958.

Switch from CBS to NBC (1994–January 1995)

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

WCAU: WCAU-TV ident from 1973 to 1976; the "10" survived with only minor changes until 1995. — WCAU-TV ident from 1973 to 1976; the "10" survived with only minor changes until 1995.

WCAU's boxed 10 logo was adopted upon its new affiliation with NBC in September 1995, and its use lasted until February 2012.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with WCAU

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what WCAU claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, 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 WCAU 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 WCAU 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 WCAU

In research: WCAU appears in computer science 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 WCAU 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: WCAU is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1948 establishments in Pennsylvania, Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia, Cozi TV affiliates, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for WCAU 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 WCAU in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what WCAU 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 WCAU out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is WCAU in simple terms?

Why does WCAU matter?

Because it connects several computer science 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 WCAU?

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 WCAU.