When did the first commercially licensed UHF TV station come on the air in the U.S.?

History tells us that the first commercially licensed TV station on the air was KPTV, Channel 27, in Portland, Oregon. It came on the air on September 18, 1952. This TV station got much of its equipment, including its transmitter, from KC2XAK.

With American television broadcasting, it began experimentally in the 1930s with regular commercial broadcasting taking place in New York and Chicago in 1941. Bandwidth was originally allocated (by the Federal Communications Commission – the FCC) solely in the VHF (Very High Frequency) band. All VHF TV channels except channel 1 through 13 had been removed from the FCC allocation list during World War II. Those frequencies were assigned to the U.S. military for use. Thirteen channels were left for use by the American public as of May 1945.

In 1952 with Ultra high frequency (UHF) TV broadcasting, it became popular since TV broadcasting in the U.S. would need to convert from analog to digital. So much of the broadcasting had to end up on UHF bands because the higher frequencies were less susceptible to electrical interference. UHF signals unlike analog signals did not create much picture noise and any interference did not cause the complete loss of a workable signal. After seeing how much better UHF worked, even decades before it happened, the FCC had truly contemplated moving all analog television to UHF.

Then after UHF television was formally/officially launched the public, everybody loved it. And they wanted in on it.