WRLP came into existence because of the technical limitations UHF stations faced in the 1950s. The Springfield market was designated as an all-UHF market due to all of the possible VHF allocations being unavailable due to it being surrounded by allocations for Boston, Massachusetts/Manchester, New Hampshire (channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 11), Hartford/New Haven (channels 3 and 8), Providence, Rhode Island (channels 6, 10 and 12) and the Capital District (Albany/Schenectady/Troy, channels 6, 10 and 13). This area is one of the most rugged in the Northeast, being dotted with small hills and mountains. Additionally, much of the population is within or just outside the winding valley of the Connecticut River. These factors made UHF reception difficult. Soon after WWLP signed on, the station's owners, the Putnam family, realized that much of the northern portion of the market in Franklin County northward—including Greenfield, Brattleboro, Vermont and Keene, New Hampshire—could not get an acceptable signal from WWLP. With cable still very much in its infancy, the Putnams decided to open WRLP as a full-time satellite of WWLP. Further compounding these reception problems, UHF stations could not be viewed without the use of an expensive external converter that received UHF signals (it wasn't until the passing of the All-Channel Receiver Act in 1962 that all TVs were required to have them built in).