Transmitting on the banned UHF TV channels 70-83

In North America, UHF TV channels 70 to 83 never saw much use, but in 1985, Radio Shack introduced the Multiple Video Distribution System, which accepted three video signals and rebroadcasted them on channels 74, 78, and 82. In 1987, they were forced to take it off the market, due to the FCC reallocating the frequencies used by channels 70 and above for use by mobile phones and public safety services. Luckily, I was able to find one of these unique devices, and despite the FCC banning it 35 years ago, it still works great -- if you have a TV or VCR old enough to tune in those upper UHF channels!
Correction: It can also rebroadcast sources on channel 2 or 4, not just channel 3. The resulting output channel will be shifted down or shifted up by one, respectively.
#uhf #tv #vhs

[@TickyTack23]

In hotels, back in the day, we'd use the 70-83 channels to broadcast on demand services. Each wing had it's own on demand broadcaster, and everyone on that wing would get the same signals. But the tv would lock out those channels from being accessed, unless the TV requested for an on demand menu, or payed for a movie. Then the movie would play on the assigned channel, tell the TV to unlock the channel, and change the channel to the now unlocked channel. Technically if you brought your own TV, and hooked up to the cable, you can tune into someone elses on demand movies playing, and their menu access just by switching through those 70-83 channels.

[@Shadi2]

My dad unlocked Hotel TVs following instructions from a BBS text file. Free way to watch movies when he was traveling for work.

[@timcat1004]

@@Shadi2 In around the year 2000 me and my cable TV crew figured out how to clone the TV in our rooms and have the billing go to any room. IE the spank till noon went on the bosses bill. We were able to get into the secret menus with an Atlas universal remote. Each room had a 4 digit hexadecimal number. We figured the pattern of witch room had witch number. Jezus we caused chaos at checkout time.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

Cable TV channels 126 - 139 (126 - 135 corresponds UHF channel 70 - 79).

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

Analog TV channels in Japan used 11 - 12 GHz as Broadcast Satellite channels until 2011 to ISDB-S.

[@CocoAnarchy93]

Flowers By Irene?

[@hgbugalou]

VWestlife is going to have a white van with lots of antennas parked outside of his house for the next few months.

[@drctrs]

Yeah, don’t mess with the FCC or else!

[@currentsitguy]

@@drctrs Not as bad as the Phone Cops kzbin.info/www/bejne/mYWzq4d9ZrGrbJI

[@josephhacker6508]

@@drctrs the fcc is a joke

[@doctorwhofan6340]

True thier gonna be like write that down write that down

[@MNDXer1057]

@@josephhacker6508 Yes they are. SCREW THE FCC!

[@haweater1555]

I'm in Canada, and cheap 83 channel TVs continued to be sold likely all the way up to the end of analog. Back in year 2000, me and my retail co-workers each received a prize from a product distributor for high sales, it was a portable 5" CRT B&W TV/AM/FM radio with all analog tuning covering all channels to 83. I immediately knew what to do with them: tune analog dial into the high UHF range and pick up private cellular phone conversations. Great drama and amusement!!

[@lucasrem]

Old people still need it ? Why upload it, sentimental ....

[@jeromeglick]

@Haweater You mean one of these? kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y3XPnGx9Z6Z3oNU

[@dougbrowning82]

So, in the early 2000s, cell phones were still, open, analog, FM, UHF radios, that anyone with an old TV from as far back as the All Channels Act of 1964 could tune into, and listen to your private conversations. I wonder how many people actually knew that.

[@Mister_Belvidere]

I remember when I was a kid in the early 90s I could sometimes catch the neighbor's cordless phone conversations while I was channel surfing through the upper channels.

[@akiblue]

CityTV in Toronto was originally on channel 79 then it moved to channel 57. We caught the channel better at night. I remember playing with the tower antenna knob to catch it (we lived in the Niagara region) Late Great Movies, Not So Great Movies, Baby Blue movies, my parents had no idea my brother, sister and I were watching R rated movies. We had the thumb on the ZENITH remote ready to change the channel if we heard my parents coming.

[@Gk2003m]

Radio Shack is sorely missed. It was awesome to have a store that sold diodes and capacitors and ICs right around the corner. And a bonus that they sold gizmos like this. I still use three of their pyramid IR extenders to this day.

[@wolfetteplays8894]

They still exist, they’ve just downsized a l

[@mikeyf103]

I loved these shops in the UK they were called Tandy or radio shack in the states,loved their catalogues

[@8BitNaptime]

Oh man, great memories as a kid riding my bike to Radio Shack to buy whatever for projects. The best was the Battery Club card, I had one for every Radio Shack in biking radius. Granted they were the worst batteries (red) but the 9V ones were good enough for RC toy transmitters!

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

In 🇦🇺 and 🇳🇿 we had Dick Smith, but they later turned into a more vanilla consumer-electronics business. And then they closed down. Luckily, now we have Jaycar.

[@paulsi1234]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104yeah, but we also had Tandy (aka Radio Shack).

[@arbutuswatcher]

I think it's safe to say, that there are a great many things once carried by Radio Shack, that we'll wish we could still buy, but are no longer available. Thanks for demonstrating this device. Charles Tandy would be proud. :)

[@wargrunt2002]

Amen, Radio Shack was one of my favorite places to go back when I was a pre-teen and teenager. The number of components they sold (and pretty much only them) was so thrilling to me. 😛

[@batphink2655]

Like their Shure SM 58 clone Microphone that sounded nearly as good as the real thing and had more warm mid range frequency .I still have mine somewhere and it took a shit kicking lasing well over 20 years!

[@masstv9052]

You can still order many things from china that you can't buy in the states. There's a few sites, and Alibaba and AliExpress are just 2 of them.

[@jeremygenslinger4874]

Heathkit also they were actually better than RadioShack in some ways but mail-order

[@terrylandess6072]

My last trip to Radio Shack was to purchase a new cooling fan for a computer. I just took my old one along to match the specs and later that day my system was back up and running.

[@rogerb5615]

Wow, do I ever miss that clack clack clack sound of an analog channel selector on a CRT television.

[@jamesnoble3502]

Or your dad yelling at you to not turn it so fast . What are you trying to do, break it? Then we're changing channels with a pair of pliers like hobos or a poor person!

[@raymondmartin6737]

I remember going into Radio Shack, just when analog cell phones were developing, and listening to phone conversations on then current small B&W tvs 📺 on display where the upper channels would tune them.

[@NelsonBigGunP200Fan]

I did the same with my little B&W tv with its bunny ears antennas and the circle UHF antenna. Lots of very interesting conversations i heard on this TV.

[@dave6279]

same here, you could hear 10 to 15 seconds of a conversation very clear and then it would click out..i assumed at the time it was a privacy function on their phones..same with old b/w tv at high channels..I have no idea what gave me the idea to try it...

[@jarekstorm6331]

I worked at Radio Shack in the late 80s and we could pick up all sorts of telephone conversations with the big multiband scanners we sold.

[@zekeigtos7240]

When I was growing up, we had one of these and also, I had an alcoholic very controlling mother. She had to be in control of everything in the house, always held the remote during movie night, and even conversations around the dinner table had to be about what she wanted to talk about and everything we watched on TV had to be what she wanted to watch. My dad got one of these, was very proud of it, since we could all go to bed and watch a single movie off the VCR in our various bedrooms. Well, this meant my mother couldn't control things and she completely flipped out, screaming that "she couldn't see it" (whatever that meant) and demanded my father disconnect the device. Such memories.

[@illbeyourmonster1959]

Ah, yes. Growing up around drunk narcissistic rage. The childhood memories that nothing will ever wash away.

[@JablesMullet]

@@illbeyourmonster1959 alcohol will wash it away.

[@johnpglackin345]

@@JablesMullet the cycle needs to be broken.

[@clarkstone-bear7742]

The hole going to your rooms but still watching a movie together sounds nice. But your mom... dude that sucks

[@illbeyourmonster1959]

@@JablesMullet And the circle of self-inflicted hell stays alive for one more generation.

[@martinda7446]

Truly excellent quality modulation. Beautifully made.

[@ntsecrets]

My guess is it didn’t actually do any modulation. It just retuned ch 3 up to whatever uhf ch. So whatever was passed in that 6 mhz in on ch 3 ended up on the uhf. The later one with the composite input I guess did for that?

[@martinda7446]

​@@ntsecrets I just had in mind those awful cheap modulators in every bit of video equipment through the 80s. Here in the UK all modulators were set for the same CH37. Channel 5 took this gap in the band So is it shifting three inputs sitting on the same carrier? It may demodulate and remodulate? It is not so easy to just remove the carrier or shift carrier, as all sidebands are related to the carrier in the mixing. It is an interesting question and I guess all the RF boys are shouting, 'idiot'. I am strictly DC to 20khz, Cheap scopes have always been fine for me.😁 The quality though looked very good from here and better than I'd imagine from what can be thought of as a generation loss when 'remodulated'.

[@jordanhazen7761]

@@martinda7446 I expect it just mixes whatever appears on AUX1, AUX2, AUX3 inputs with three different local oscillators, filters the output, combines those and then amplifies them. Basically the reverse of what the front-end to an analog TV tuner does when it shifts an incoming signal down to the set's IF frequency. Channel 3 is 60-66MHz, 74 (was) 830-836, 78 was 854-860, and 82 878-884. So, three of the sealed cans probably have oscillators tuned for 770, 794, and 818MHz, an RF mixer, maybe an amplifier (if all three aren't boosted together after combining), and hopefully a high-pass filter to reject the unwanted upside-down "difference" frequencies on ~710-758MHz, ch. 54-62 which would have carried OTA broadcasts in some areas. I do wonder if the pass-through antenna input was low-pass filtered to remove any interference on those highest UHF channels. There's a chance this device would even work with a modern DTV ATSC signal input on ch. 2, 3, or 4, not that this would be especially useful since consumer ATSC modulators are pretty much nonexistent, and pricey ones that do exist can be tuned directly to desired UHF channels.

[@martinda7446]

@@jordanhazen7761 Thanks Jordan

[@wilkes85]

Oh man that's awesome! The newer version would be so useful for a lot of things. Also I remember when the upper UHF channels were used for cell phones, I used to tune to around ch. 83 and try to listen to the conversations, usually it sounded like a room full of people talking, and they weren't usually talking about anything interesting lol

[@jeromeglick]

If it sounded to you like a room full of people talking, they must have used time-division multiplexing to separate out the conversations to their respective parties. Kind of like how data packets from different sources get directed to different computers/devices through a LAN router. Either that or the cell phone conversations were narrowband and the TV received wideband.

[@cblasterx]

@@jeromeglick It would be the latter, interestingly! NTSC UHF broadcasts have a frequency bandwidth of 6 MHz per channel, but the analog telephony protocol in car phones and the like had a bandwidth of 30 KHz at the most. It might be possible to isolate a conversation on the upper or lower end of the spectrum if you had a fine-tunable analog tuner and a very steady hand (just guessing on that, however), and I don’t know how it would actually sound with many conversations going on at the same time. There are some videos of people doing it online, but with car phones being so rare you rarely see multiple transmissions at the same time.

[@teresaanderson3581]

You used to listen to people with cell phones on cb I have a Cobra

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

Japan was broadcast analog NTSC SHF broadcast on 12 GHz band on channels 63 to 80.

[@morganrussman]

​@teresaanderson3581 you remember how long ago that was?

[@uxwbill]

Back in the mid 1990s, I was given a late 1980s Zenith console TV whose tuner still went up to channel 83. Puttering around with it one night, I was quite surprised to hear cellular telephone and some other radio communications on the upper UHF channels. The lack of other video inputs is a little surprising, though that box seemed to be doing an outstanding job working from the RF output of those devices.

[@LakeNipissing]

That was the first part of the UHF band (upper part) which was re-allocated to analog cell phone service).

[@NickDalzell]

I remember early police scanner radios being able to pick up the 900MHz band that allowed me to hear many voicemail systems as well as analogue cellular conversations. I think the FCC ultimately banned those radios as well.

[@jamesslick4790]

@@NickDalzell They did. Ansd all modern scanners STILL block the analog cell frequencies by law (Even if it's obsolete for cellular today)

[@1L6E6VHF]

Old UHF TV converters, made for watching UHF stations on TV sets with 12-channel VHF-Only sets, could be used to tune the original analog cellular phones. Narrowband FM! (Not possible now).

[@jamesslick4790]

@@1L6E6VHF Yeppers!!!! I had a UHF converter (A "Mallory", circa 1950s model) and YES, since it was a continuous tuner (no "steps" or "gaps") it was great fun seeing (OK, HEARING!) what was "out there" on the old UHF band. I eventually sold it (and a decent RUNNING 1950s RCA (VHF only- Hence the converter.) TV to a dedicated TV collector. as I was "downsizing". It "lives on" in the hands of a caring TV "geek". Good stuff!

[@beverpix]

With a good antenna amplifier and a small dipole antenna you can transmit it via air. This way I have a very good signal in and around the house. Analog, but that's the charm of it. Great vid, thanks!

[@MongoVids]

That would actually get you in trouble if the signal escaped your home. Especially if it were to interfere with emergency communications (assuming they still use that band). It's not that hard to track down the source of the interference. Cheap SDRs can be used to accomplish this. I think we are both talking about theoretical situations, right? 😉

[@whitesapphire5865]

Interesting idea! I'm in the UK, and was given a UHF TV transmitter some years ago, not long after the closure of analogue TV in the UK. It's output is tunable across channels 32 to 38, and aimed at the VCR output frequencies. It was originally used to broadcast the then 'new' Ch5. I'd love to power it up, but with an output power of 5W, I'd very quickly find myself in the soup. It's RF output is 5W. I don't know what that equates to in ERP, but I gather it would be rather more than 5W?? Unfortunately, we can't play around on broadcast frequencies!

[@k8zhd]

@@whitesapphire5865 5W is gigantic, at least for US home broadcasters -- we're limited to 100 milliwatts and simple antennas at best. 5 watts would cover a neighborhood easily, and certainly invite a visit from the FCC. ERP, by the way, means Effective Radiated Power, and takes into account the "gain" of the antenna, referenced to a dipole. So with a dipole connected, the ERP would be 5 W. With a simple outdoors UHF TV antenna, the ERP might be 10 or 20 W.

[@LakeNipissing]

CITY-TV (Independent movie channel from Toronto, Canada) was a high power commercial TV station broadcasting on *Channel 79* until 1984 or 1985, when it was forced to move to Channel 57 when the top of the UHF TV band was moved from Channel 83 to Channel 69. When CITY-TV was broadcasting on Channel 79, I believe it was the highest numbered channel in North America for a commercial TV station.

[@1L6E6VHF]

But there were other stations above Channel 37. Youngstown, OH was on Channel 83 for a short time. It still makes regular broadcasts on a much lower UHF channel.

[@1L6E6VHF]

In the earliest days of UHF television, the channels were all over the band. Oddly, most of the UHF stations were scattered all over the UHF Band. About five years in (1953-1958), UHF Broadcasters realized that lower channels were better on UHF, and many of the UHF stations migrated to lower pastures.

[@TheoSmith249]

Baby blue movies on late friday night. What ever house party we were at , we'd flip to ch 79.. remember it well.

[@cwf1701]

in addition, the CBC operated CBEFT-78 in Windsor ON from 1975-82 when the station was moved down to 54 (Between WKBD-50 and WTVS-56)

[@voiceofjeff]

You just said something that made me realize why I like you so much. Something about having that box 35 years after the FCC made it illegal. You're one of those who hangs on to very unique and collectible equipment. Now, here you are years later with that cool little box and it's working perfectly. I don't even see any scratches on it. Wow. Do you think the three UHF outputs could be mixed together using a splitter and then fed to a small amplifier for distribution to every room in the house? Seems like Radio Snack would have come up with an additional add-on to be able to do that. After all, you'd want to have all those channels fed to all of your TV's in the house, right? Thanks for your great videos and clear, concise explanations. You're a guy I'd probably enjoy geeking out over lunch with about this kind of stuff.

[@vwestlife]

I haven't literally had it for 35+ years. I got it on eBay a few years ago. In the manual for it, Radio Shack said you could use a splitter to connect it to more than three TVs.

[@nickwallette6201]

No need to mix the outputs together. If I understand the explanation in the video correctly, the outputs are identical. The three inputs are pre-mixed, amplified, then distributed to the three outputs. You can tap any one of them and tune all the modulated channels, and the mixed-in antenna passthrough.

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

@@nickwallette6201 That would make it handier to use, to be sure.

[@5roundsrapid263]

There was a product called the “TV Rabbit” around the same time. It was affected by the same FCC ban, so it was changed to a wired connection. It only transmitted on one channel, though.

[@marcusdamberger]

@@nickwallette6201 Yup, as you can see in the video he just tunes one channel or another on the same TV without having to switch out the coax in the back to a different output on the box. So this shows each output on the box is pre-mixed with all three modulators.

[@notsorandumusername]

Nice to see the old VCR is still able to blink "12 : 00" like it's supposed to do

[@WomanOf100Faces]

Yup. My VCR still does the same lol. I'll never and WILL never figure out how to program it.

[@landomilknhoney]

😁

[@billyfowler9423]

As a kid I was the time setting bandit. I would set people's time on their VCR when they were not looking. The neighbor called my mom and asked if I set the time on their VCR when we were over the day before. They were shocked as they could never figure it out.

[@michaelterry1000]

I had NO idea that something like this was available for the consumer market in the 1980s. I knew that UHF went up to channel 83 but I never noticed that 70-83 disappeared in the 1980s. That is just wild.

[@anonUK]

TV in the UK is now just on UHF channels 21-50, as of last year.

[@xheralt]

Fun side note: the RF conversion dongle used on the camcorder was also used by Sony for their original Playstation consoles.

[@jerbear7952]

I remember that. I also remember thinking the Playstation was some qvc scam designed to get unsuspecting grandmas to accidentally buy bootleg "nintendos" for their grandkids. Oops

[@jerbear7952]

Apparently some of the original models are very sought-after by audiophiles as cd players

[@jordansullivan7290]

It’s a myth. They aren’t special cd players

[@warptek]

I came for the premise. Quickly discovered it didn't apply to me then stayed for the nostalgia. That equipment from the 80s was a trip back in time.

[@MrDdefos]

I worked at Radio Shack during this time period. I sold only a few of these. I installed one for a customer too. One serious problem with this device was the extreme coax cable signal loss on the ouput. Any more than 25 feet and the signal was almost useless.

[@FromTheRoomOfLittleEase]

I specifically enjoy videos about devices like this. I was fascinated by these type of options for closed circuit video and cable and antenna's etc growing up. Thank you for covering this one. The fact it's an Archer makes it even better. I hope you find the opportunity to cover more similar items in the future.

[@lincmerc1581]

My dad brought a single channel transmitter home back in the day. That was fun!

[@TPRES_74]

I remember those Tv's. My Tv would get telephone conversation's, Sear's service call's came through also on UHF. Some interesting telephone conversation's for a kid to listen to.

[@IamNerfDart]

In Amarica right now no broadcasters can actually be any higher then RF channel 36. Digital TV has virtual channels so the channels you see might not mean they are broadcasting on the frequency that corresponds to that channel. Channel 37 is used for radio astronomy, 38-51 is 600MHz Cellular/Unlicensed, 52-69 is 700MHz Cellular/Pubic Safety, and 70-83 is 800MHz Cellular/SMR, In total there is now only 23 UHF channels, 7 Hi-VHF channels, and 5 Low-VHF channels, to a combined 35 channels available.

[@jayrogers8255]

23 UHF channels, totaling 35.

[@IamNerfDart]

@@jayrogers8255 You're right, I miscounted somewhere.

[@jayrogers8255]

@@IamNerfDart no worries! We almost had even fewer channels. There was talk of stopping stations from going above 30!

[@IamNerfDart]

@@jayrogers8255 17 UHF channels is super low. I'm honestly waiting for ATSC 4.0 to come out and be like. "Since theres less broadcasting spectrum available, we now only use 2Mhz channels"

[@jayrogers8255]

@@IamNerfDart that would be great! I was reading that it’s because of Zenith that our ATSC 1.0 is 8VSB instead of COFDM, which apparently is more robust. Some hams transmit digital television using COFDM.

[@patriciawilson9666]

Growing up in Detroit back in the seventies we were very fortunate to be able to pick up not just our local Detroit broadcasts but also Toledo Ohio and most importantly to this discussion Windsor Ontario. We used to pick up CBEFT but generally only at night.This was the French Canadian station which broadcast out of Windsor.Their broadcast capabilities were weak but for us who lived close enough to the river it could still be picked up most nights. The station later moved down the band to 54 in 1982 after bands 69 and up were removed.

[@PaulRiismandel]

I had a 5” B&W analog that I purchased in the early 2000s that still had reception up to channel 83, though it wasn’t supposed to. I could hear analog cell phone calls, which were unencrypted.

[@mharris5047]

I had one of those in the mid 90's. We didn't have cell phone service where I live at that point (and I wasn't really looking to eavesdrop on anyone when I was in a larger city) but it did tune right on up to channel 83. I used it in my motorhome, after I sold that my mother used it in my parents kitchen for several more years.

[@joelgoff1111]

My grandparents had one of these in their house. They used it to send the signal from a VCR (they had both VHS and Betamax) downstairs to the upstairs TV (before they got a second VHS machine). They gave it to me when it was no longer needed and I had fun playing around with it. Wish I still had it as a "museum piece."

[@12voltvids]

The only reason they needed to redesign this was after channels 70-83 were removed from new TVs the old converter would no longer work. As the converted signals are sent out over coax there is really no restriction on the sale or use of the old box, except for the fact that TVs made after channels 70-93 were phased out would no longer work. Also the unit you have can very easily be tuned down to work in the lower range. I have some professional modulators that will still go to channel 83 on UHF band and will also tune to 90-95 on the cable band which is actually the FM broadcast band. It actually might be fun to play with a few of them and some old vintage TVs and see how high I get get them to go.

[@veganguy74]

“10 turns of the key in rapid succession initiates the self-destruct feature.”

[@jordanhazen7761]

Most computer-based television receiver cards can still receive the full 2-83 range, providing their drivers allow it. For instance, an ATI TV Wonder 600 USB (ATSC+analog) uses an xc2028 tuner chip, which covers all of 42-864MHz. I've tested mine (under Linux) on 70-83 using a 3-channel UHF modulator (ASKA RFDM-3), which is similar in purpose to this Radio Shack device, but modulates three composite video & baseband audio sources rather than frequency-shifting VHF signals. The ASKA unit is digitally tunable from 14-83 (or to CATV hyper-band channels within a similar range), and served well for many years to distribute satellite-receiver and security camera signals around the house. We ran it on channels 37, 65, and 68 iirc, but after the DTV transition had add a low-pass filter to our OTA antenna to block LTE cellular signals on channels 52+, which were otherwise strong enough to stomp all over even a high-output modulator. Like every consumer-grade modulator, it doesn't bother to filter out lower sidebands, so unlike with a proper CATV headend it's necessary to leave at least a one-channel gap between channels, and certain combinations of locally-sourced & OTA channels would give intermodulation interference.

[@steeviebops]

These frequencies were still used internationally until analogue switched off. In Europe, for example, our channels 21 to 69 went from 471 to 855 MHz. So that would explain why the TV cards would allow it.

[@hyvahyva]

Those upper channels are now used by cellular and public safety radio systems. You can use them on a CATV system, but be very careful to use good quality cable and fittings and avoid leaks.

[@manolokonosko2868]

Man, I miss the old Radio Shack, where you could buy all sorts of odd electronic equipment. Now everything is on the goddamn iPhone.

[@MiBrCo4177]

I remember going into a radio shack back in 2008 for my xbox looking for an hdmi cable and some other stuff for the ps3 and new 42in flat screen full 1080p TV. I miss Radioshack lol. Circuit City and Sears.

[@LordKreiden]

How I miss Radio Shack ! Remember all that Realistic Hi-Fi sets and electronic building kits? Have not found anything like that place since . Or maybe at COSCO?

[@NitroModelsAndComics]

Radio Shack was always a wealth of great gadgets. Miss em...

[@johnstreet797]

I worked there for years. Miss it a lot. I had a Micronta multimeter and took it in to a store for evaluation. That $ 59.00 meter was as close as the many thousand dollar tester was.

[@joeblow8593]

I understand that a lot of NY TV stations used those repeater channels from 70 - 83 in the 1970's because some people in Manhattan couldn't pick up the stations on their regular channels due to multipath and signal blockage. Some old New York City TV Guides from the early to mid 1970's supposedly showed the repeater channel location next to the regular channels.

[@vwestlife]

Correct, that was when the World Trade Center was under construction, and in certain directions blocked the TV signals from the Empire State Building. Eventually they solved that problem by moving the TV transmitters to the WTC (until 9/11 of course), but in the meantime they added upper UHF translators to fill in the gaps. (Cable TV wasn't available in most of NYC until around 1985.)

[@cliffontheroad]

@@vwestlife nice U R making comments. Thankfully one TV station was still in the ESB on 9/11 because in NewJersey, having 72 cable channels of "nothing on" (LOL) was still gaining market share.

[@vwestlife]

@@cliffontheroad Channel 2 WCBS-TV had a 35-year-old backup transmitter in the ESB which they put back in service on 9/11. They got an engineer out of retirement and obtained the last pair of tubes for it that Harris had in stock to keep it going until they were able to rebuild their transmitter site. (High-power radio and TV transmitters commonly had vacuum tube final output stages until the '90s.)

[@PapaWheelie1]

@@vwestlife- IOT’s are definitely still in use. But solid state is welcome so I can sleep with fewer interruptions lol

[@novelezra]

Tonight on 69 NEWS: Please stop pranking us.

[@jonmason1955]

I remember Radio Shack offering these. Never bought one because didn't really understand it. Now I do! Knowing I watched UHF channels, back then they were mainly Spanish speaking stations like Telemundo, and Univision. I watched the soccer games from Mevico, Brazil or Central America. The picture was very snowy and the sound not good. My electronics tinkering dad devised an antenna that boosted the poor UHF signal so that they were more watchable. Not speaking Spanish at the time, the commentators were of value to me only to know the reams and players names. This was way before the popularity of soccer in this country. Oh. But then I got hooked on the Mexican novellas, game and variety shows. Helped with my learning Spanish a lot!

[@coolelectronics1759]

lol were u also from mexico? I am When I was a kid it was channel28 univision and that was it.

[@erich6096]

Great video. Many years ago as a kid, I had a black and white TV with all 83 channels and realized when I tuned past 69 I would hear various cell phone signals. They would be unintelligible due to the narrow band nature of those signals and wide band reception of the TV. By chance I also had a Realistic 6 band Patrolman radio then noticed when it was in close enough proximity to the TV on the VHF Low band setting 30 - 50 Mhz, the oscillators would effect each other in such a way that I was able to tune in the 800 Mhz channels from the TV on the VHF low band of the Patrolman radio. That of course was against the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, but since it was back in the 80's when I was just a kid I'm guessing it's okay to mention it now. It was also back in the days when cellphones were analog and were still vulnerable to ease dropping by modified scanners, etc. I was probably the only kid in school using my TV for entertainment without actually "watching" what was on TV.

[@jeromeglick]

You will now be criminally prosecuted to the full extent of the law for illegal wiretapping offenses. ... Just kidding! :P

[@turbouno969]

I’ve just taken a screenshot of your confession and will send it to the proper authorities. Your crime is has no time limit.

[@michaelcoder9119]

@Turbo Blackmail is also illegal and I've screenshot yours. Have a nice week.

[@eastdoors]

Cool

[@1L6E6VHF]

An old UHF converter (which was available from electronic stores for $25-$50) were able to catch analog voice, with far more selectivity than the converter alone. This no longer applies, since there are no AMPS (analog cellular) systems.

[@bf0189]

A very clear picture! I love it. I'd have used it to play Nintendo if I was in the 80s even though there might have been input lag. PS; Thank you for answering my question on Reddit about 78s and recording quality!

[@testcardsandmore1231]

No input lag on analog devices like this.

[@bf0189]

@@testcardsandmore1231 I stand corrected!

[@nickwallette6201]

Haha.. yeah, in the analog domain, lag isn't measured in frames or ms, it's measured in degrees. :-D

[@perryb3263]

I discovered long ago that analog cable channel 125 was same, or close to, frequencies as broadcast channel 69, because channel OTA 62 where lived was so strong that whenever auto scanned for analog cable, many TVs would also be picking up on cable channel 118, the faint signal of the 62 broadcast channel and add it to the list of cable channels, I also discovered that the audio of FM 102.5 is picked up on cable channel 96

[@BingBreep-mk6om]

"I also discovered that the audio of FM 102.5 is picked up on cable channel 96" I had an early 1990s RCA 13 inch color TV that would jam up for a minute whenever it was tuned to 96 but on a standard OTA antenna. I never could figure out why, but you mentioning this makes me think the TV got confused encountering an audio carrier without the video. (IIRC) I heard a local FM broadcast but it was distorted as in being off frequency which might have been the real cause of the 'confusion'.

[@237130]

Brought back a lot of great memories. Growing up in Boston there was no shortage of transmissions to pick up on the higher uhf dial numbers.

[@fhowland]

Very interesting! I used to love radio shack, they made so many cool quirky products.

[@twocvbloke]

When they turned off all the analogue television here in the UK, I kind of wanted something like this for my older equipment that lacked A/V inputs, so I could pipe the digital versions of my most used channels through to them kind of like a miniature cable TV headend, but interest in that kind of waned as I've lost interest in broadcast TV anyway...

[@kaitlyn__L]

I did something vaguely similar, the Freeview box into the VCR via SCART, into the TV via SCART but also out via the RF output into a splitter, into the house central aerial that would’ve been a loft aerial if it weren’t awful and gotten rid of. Needed a signal booster on the other ends though, but useful until the prices of the boxes came down so one on each TV was feasible.

[@whitesapphire5865]

There are devices which can actually do that. I can't recall, just off hand, who the manufacturers are right now, but I have a couple of early "MultiView T-35" boxes which I still use to feed my collection of older/vintage TVs and VCRs. They have three tuners and can receive three digital bouquets. From the digital channels, you can select five to convert to analogue. If you have more than one box, you can convert five channels per box, so in my case, that equates to ten analogue channels available for displaying on my analogue TVs.

[@DodgerFanAD_23]

This is so cool seeing older technology way before my time.

[@MrJavaman5]

We used to have a tv that went up to channel 82 when I was a kid. I remember tuning up in the 78-82 range and hearing some strange signals. That was in the 1990’s.

[@James_Knott]

That would have been 83, which was the highest TV channel.

[@davegreenlaw5654]

Up here in Toronto, CITY -TV was broadcasting on channel 79 (cable 7) but then switched down to 57 in the early 80's. Their explanation at the time was that it was due to some US regulations, but I never heard the reason why...until today. Thanks for the explanation.

[@taofanarchy96-renzomaracas14]

_"CityTv - everywhere."_ (R.I.P. Mark Dailey)

[@westtnskirmishlog6820]

I'm hooked. Absolutely up my ally lol. Thank you for your work. Very cool, very heavy, wish my old man was here to see it, as this was one of his hobbies I loved helping him with. Thank you for this, much love to you and yours sir.

[@theabandonedyoutubechannel5251]

Finally, a step closer to having my very own cable headend! Honestly, something like this would pair pretty well with a few Raspberry Pi's and an RF modulator. I could imagine feeding in a couple video streams, hooking them up to this box, and just having a few TVs around the house I could use to watch one of the streams I pipe in. Something like this with RCA inputs would be pretty cool, and I imagine it might already exist

[@biffrapper]

This has some of the most amazing CRT capture I have seen on youtube yet, especially the closeups of the phosphors. Thank you.

[@DavidWonn]

All my CRT TVs are so old, they tune up to channel 83, not that I use them for much these days. They're great for old gaming consoles, avoiding any input lag.

[@JeffreyPiatt]

WFMZ-tv 69 is my Local station they run a local Weather station on 69.2 and own METV 2 in Philadelphia, PA. There a sponsor of one of my former Employers Dorney Park and have Weather Cameras installed on Domanatior the multi tower ride by S&S Power. These splitters I remember seeing a lot set up in K-mart TV displays to multiplex the store video loops.

[@jordanhazen7761]

Following the latest "repacking" moves to make room for more cellular bands, WFMZ is now actually on VHF RF channel 7 (174 MHz). Before repacking they were on UHF 46. Still showing the virtual channel 69 throughout, but with ATSC's lousy performance on VHF, reception is probably worse now for many viewers, especially those using an indoor antenna.

[@scotthutchens1203]

I also live well within the WFMZ viewing area since 1973. Good old 69 NEWS has come a long way.

[@philipbirch9183]

We had something like this in the UK. I set up a pirate tv station at the University of M** using one of these. We installed it next to the main antenna which serviced over 500 student flats. Then tuned every TV that we could to channel 65. We broadcast live entertainment from the union building, dances, sometimes 'news' and porn on Monday nights. The hospital, 25 metres across the road, was able to pick it up too. Unfortunately the authorities were called and it was discovered

[@myleftthumb2294]

That would be cool to hook up and then designate the VCRs as ABC, NBC, and CBS. Then replicate an evening of vintage television programming.

[@nitemover1]

I miss radio shack they made some fun interesting useful gadget's back in the day.

[@johnstreet797]

the shack sold CB walkie talkies which came with two battery slugs to be used with alkaline batteries, but not with nicads because the voltage was lower. I warned purchases not to use all alkalines without the slugs because it might make the radio exceed its rated power output, hint, hint, grin, grin

[@discocrisco]

This video has so many opportunities to say "nice".

[@NicolasSequeira]

Wow, who knew Radio Shack could turn you into an outlaw

[@James_Knott]

I guess you never heard about CB radio, which was really abused by some.

[@MIKandJEAN]

In the UK back in 1999/2000 I bought a brand new Panasonic TX-G10 10" CRT (Silver). The CRT not only runs on mains but could also run on 12volts so could be used in Camper Vans, Caravans ect. It could also be tuned to watch TV stations around the world, (including UHF) and supports both 50hz & 60hz. Every connection you ever wanted including RGB Scart, S-Video, Composite, BNC, RF ect... It was just over £300 new so well over twice the price of a good 14" CRT at the time. I bought it for Retro computers and game consoles so never got to use the tunner for watching TV. A very cool CRT for messing about with though.

[@derpraesident98]

Everytime I see the Jetta Tape it brings a smile to my face

[@azmax623]

In the early 2000s I had modulators in my house rebroadcasting CCTV, a DVR and c-band sat dish on my coax network with notch filters to keep the signal from leaving the house. It later interfered with on-demand from the cable box, so I tore it out. Only recently sent the modulators to GoodWill.

[@rmccombs66]

I remember in the 1990's I bought a "block converter" that converted cable channels to UHF 14 -83. I don't remember the brand.

[@mharris5047]

I didn't have one but from what I heard they did work. I did play around with an old VCR where you had to set channels on it at my parents house (they had cable for a while), it did make some of the higher cable channels tunable even though it wasn't supposed to. I had moved out of town and had satellite by that time so I just connected my receiver through the VCR and had to use the satellite receiver to tune transponders like you would channels on a television.

[@Markimark151]

UHF used to be popular for us antenna viewers, but I hate how the FCC now in the digital age is trying sell higher UHF spectrum to mobile companies, and we’re getting broadcasting stations moving to VHF between ch 2-9!

[@mharris5047]

I believe the FCC is planning on eliminating broadcast television from the country, the plan is to make everyone subscribe to cable, satellite or some sort of streaming service. The second stage is to make all channels in a market be on one channel now that there are subchannels and 6-7 television stations can use one transmitter and one channel. After the digital transition stations were forced to transmit at powers that only serve their city, anyone more than 20-30 miles from town are now forced to subscribe to some service to watch television -- that was the first stage.

[@Markimark151]

@@mharris5047 yeah, networks like NBC and PBS are broadcasting on low VHF channels like NBC (4) and PBS (9), while they’re advertising their own live TV subscription with Peacock and PBS passport. I don’t want pay for more subscription, I only watch selected shows from those network for free OTA.

[@1L6E6VHF]

@@Markimark151 If you looked behind the system of *virtual channels*, you'll find that most TV stations - even those on the Low-VHF and High-VHF band, actually are broadcasting in the UHF band. You press "4" with your remote, and your TV goes to UHF channel 32 to get your chosen program - yet you see "4" on your set, though it's on UHF.

[@Markimark151]

@@1L6E6VHF I know about virtual channels. My CBS station is actually UHF channel 28, but it’s virtually channel 5! But you have some channels moving to VHF from UHF to cost operating costs!

[@1L6E6VHF]

However, the repack actually meant the vast majority of TV stations moved up to UHF channels.

[@Chris_In_Texas]

Except that now a days to following RF channels were removed; 52-69 in 2016, and 38-50 were in 2020 and 51 was in 2011. Additionally RF channel 37 was allocated to astronomical use as well. So today only 2-36 TV spectrum exists for use today, however most VHF low 2-6 aren't used, there are exceptions, and VHF High 7-13 are used a bit more but not much as well. Most TV stations use UHF RF channels 14-36 only. There are a number of markets that may still have some VHF channels but most have been migrated over to the UHF bands. Channels above 38 have been allocated to mobile phone networks as well, and as an example T-Mobile has spectrum allocated there in many markets. Keep up the good work sir! 👍🤠

[@welovemrp00]

Aren't a few of those channels (like 57-61?) allocated for ham radio use?

[@Chris_In_Texas]

@@welovemrp00 That would be 728Mhz to 758Mhz (57-61). Nope, just public safety and wireless communications (cell phones), although as of 2022 there still shows LPTV, TV Translator/Booster (74G) however I assume all of those are gone now, but not 100% sure. That is where they were paying stations to give up spectrum as well and go off the air. Here is the excerpt from 2015: The 614-902 MHz band is divided into a number of sub-bands allocated exclusively to non-Federal users for the following radio services: aeronautical mobile, broadcasting, fixed, land mobile and mobile. Federal agency use of the band is subject to mutual agreement and coordination with non-Federal users.

[@notsorandumusername]

In many European countries, the former VHF channels are now being used for terrestrial DAB+ radio. 178-230MHz.

[@jordanhazen7761]

@@welovemrp00 Part of VHF 2-6 (54-88MHz) would have been a great addition to the amateur 6-meter band following DTV transition, since this range, especially 2-4, performs so poorly with ATSC due to that systems' low tolerance of impulse noise, but alas, it was not to be. A few broadcast stations that don't care about having more than a token OTA signal, so as to qualify for cable/satellite "must carry", took financial incentives during recent "repacking" (removal of channels 38-51) to relocate from UHF or VHF-Hi down to the 2-6 range, so it's more occupied now than a decade ago. There's also some land-mobile radio use in the 72-74MHz gap between channels 4 and 5. Some European countries have a "4 meter" ham band near this range, 70-71MHz or so.

[@James_Knott]

@@welovemrp00 Not that I'm aware of. There's one band at 420-450 MHz and another at 02-928 MHz, but nothing in between.

[@alexhaywood9706]

When I was young a cable guy lived on the next street over, he broadcasted movie channels to the neighbourhood from his satellite dish.

[@chetpomeroy1399]

I seem to remember seeing these advertised in the Radio Shack circular back in the 80's. If memory serves, the Blonder-Tongue modulators made around that time did something similar to this. It's amazing to me that the video quality from that Tandy device is so good! Where I lived at that time, there wasn't *anything* on the UHF band except for one TV station on channel 21, but did notice a lot of noise and squeal above channel 70.

[@dtvjho]

In Philadelphia, we had 17, 29 and 48 as commercial stations throughout the 70s, along with 23 and 52 in NJ as PBS. Then 48 went bankrupt in '82, and wasn't long, by the late 80s' we had newcomers 39, 57 and 65. 57 was a high-power station and kind of took 48's place. The nearby Lehigh Valley market got 69. As you can see, our UHF was filling up, and we would have needed 70-83 had the FCC not prevented that.

[@quantumfluffyflapjack]

Ooh we're living on the edge today! Amazing that this is actually easier than some of the HDMI splitters I've used to do effectively the same thing.

[@ocsrc]

I loved listening to the cell phones on the 70s and 80s channels Up in the 80s you could find tune and get all the cell phone frequencies It was a great time I remember when TVs went all the way to channel 99 on UHF They went all the way to 990 MHz for channel 99 896 mhz was channel 84, I think 78 to 83 was where cell phones used to be 869 to 894 MHz And back in the early 80s there was usually only 1 tower so you could pick up anyone in your neighborhood using one Also, cordless phones were a.m. just above 1600 on the a.m. dial They ran up around 1.8 megahertz then in the early '80s they began using the 46 megahertz 50 megahertz band for cordless phones With a 180 MI directional TV antenna with the low band elements and a rotor you could pick up your entire towns cordless phones It was a wild time and the things we heard I still remember to this day

[@Fcreceptor]

I remember it well. The amount of calls that pertained to people cheating on their spouses was so high. Following conversations on cellular was hard because they changed towers frequently. I remember one night following a conversation at around 3 am and being able to scan through and just keep finding them. Unlocked scanner. I even had a descrambler we used to descramble those basic Motorola cordless phones. 😂

[@geezerguy6410]

I do miss radio shack, and their unique products.

[@AMStationEngineer]

Watching this video, reminded me of the "good ol' days - of TVDx" (mostly on VHF)

[@reecenewton3097]

As a kid in SE Texas in the early 1960's, I was surprised one morning to pick up a Fargo ND station for a while, very clear. I think it was on a low channel. High frequency skip.

[@AMStationEngineer]

@@reecenewton3097 I grew up near Philly, and on certain winter mornings, as a snow would be clearing, the ionosphere was "VHF-ripe", and fragments of Western US stations would appear, and occasionally Cuba.

[@raymondkudlak7310]

@@AMStationEngineer in my youth, ham license in1955, i was not old enough or knowledgeable of why I could hear out of area tv stations via “skip”. Thanks to all who posted on this thread, I learned a lot. Ps, I still have an older console tv, a 5 inch b&w and a 3 or 4” color. Yes, I am a hoarder! 73, Ray, W8ISK

[@AMStationEngineer]

@@raymondkudlak7310 Should you ever decide to analog signal "VHF

[@raymondkudlak7310]

@@AMStationEngineer thanks for responding to my post. Yes, Dayton is close by BUT difficult to cover the exhibit grounds without becoming exhausted. I will be using their golf carts this year. 73, ray

[@NEPatriot]

In CT one TV station, channel 30, our NBC affiliate (now owned), had two translators: W59AA West Haven and W79AI Torrington. At the time those translators were on, channel 30, WHNB at the time was only operating with 1,200,000 watts video. In 1978, WHNB became the present WVIT after Viacom bought the station. In 1980, the power got a power boost to about 3,000,000 watts, spelling the end for ch 79. During the 80's W59AA remained on air even though WVIT's signal was able to cover a good chunk of CT (except my region Fairfield County...as we are in the NYC market). By the 1990's 59 got shut down to make room for a full power station which is a sister station to NBC CT's rival, WTNH channel 8. CT Public TV also had translators which repeated WEDH Channel 24, the flagship station. One of them was on channel 12 or sometimes on channel 61.

[@richpayton7162]

From what I could find out the silver version was part # 15-1284, the black version was part # 15-1290. There is no shortage of either type for sale on the web.

[@itz2komplikayted207]

I'm almost in floods of tears watching this! I miss the way things used to be! 📺📺📺📼📼📼📻📻📻☎️☎️☎️💔💔💔😢😢😢

[@spunbearing65]

I remember taking a VHF/UHF antenna sideways and hearing phone calls on channels 80 and above.

[@counterproductivity]

First time channel viewer, and yep ... Ya earned another subscription. Looking forward to exploring more goodies like this. ✌️👈

[@CARLiCON]

way cool v-dub...back in the 80s when there were still unscrambled cable channels, we had a 47 Channel Block Converter that allowed you to tune cable in on an old TV with UHF all the way up to ch 83, otherwise, without a box you could only get 2-13 thru the vhf tuner

[@bwc1976]

I had one of those in my room as a kid!

[@jackp8583]

I worked at a TV repair shop from 71 to 73, never saw a TV with a UHF channel selector, never. You've blown my mind my man.

[@Dratchev241]

had one in the house when I was a kid in the 1980s. used it till the mid/late 1990s.

[@danpetitpas]

All new TV sets sold in the U.S. after April 30, 1964 had to have a UHF tuner. I guess you only got older TVs in for repair.

[@F40PH-2CAT]

This would have been awesome to connect 3 video game consoles to the same TV. 78 Atari....80 Colecovision....83 NES.

[@davidnabbit]

You can just daisy chain the RF connectors. That’s what I did back in the day.

[@F40PH-2CAT]

@@davidnabbit this seems less complicated....just tune tv to appropriate channel for system desired.

[@spacemissing]

I bought and used an MVDS, but so much time has passed I'd forgotten it for years until I saw this. I probably still have the thing.

[@969thewhip]

I used to listen to cell phone calls on channels 81 to 83 back in the early 90s. My 1st VCR you had to tune each channel to the appropriate number. You could really dial in the cell conversations a lot better with it.

[@mharris5047]

I had a couple of those. That BS was annoying but it would allow some CATV channels that the equipment wasn't claiming would be tunable.

[@dougbrowning82]

A varactor tuner. I had a TV with that. But it had a 16 position rotary selector instead of the usual row of push buttons. They were the first tuners that could get cable without a box, because you could tune the slugs up into the mid and super bands.

[@randquadrozzi1280]

I do remember the black box that my uncle sold that would pickup HBO and other channels for free but the signal did get scrambled sometimes.

[@ccbaxter47]

Damn it. This was posted just two minutes ago and I wanted to be the first to give a thumbs-up...and there are already 14? Nertz!!

[@kalonjirivers8902]

I recently looked at an old-school TV Guide magazine from 1977-two years before I was born, and I saw some channel numbers above 70 in that book. For WPIX which is channel 11 where I live in New York, it's also in channel 73. WNET channel 13 is also channel 75, and WNYC which is channel 31 from that time is also channel 79. But alas, I was not around during that time until 1979. And I did not know one thing about things like this back then. Man, there was a lot of things I have yet to learn about that existed before my time on this Earth.😁

[@kalonjirivers8902]

@Banter Maestro2 I'm only 43, and yes, I have been doing lots of research on many things that existed in the past,. But there are certain things that I either do not remember or just don't even know about at all when I was a child.😁

[@danpetitpas]

Those higher frequency channels were used for repeater and translator stations. For example, WNET channel 75 was a low-power translator channel in the Bronx for channel 13.

[@cs8712]

Works with all 69-channel TV tuners? Nice.

[@sjwright2]

2:55

[@jordanhazen7761]

Well, technically 68-channel, since over-the-air Channel 1 was eliminated long ago.

[@Patriot-bn9om]

Great stuff! This brings back so many memories of visiting Radio Shack as a young teen in the 1970's. They had all sorts of cool gadgets. Radio Shack was a leader in electronics, computers, and CB radios. All sorts of TV gadgets and antennas. And remember the electronics kits...like building a AM radio receiver? I built one and learned so much. I also had one of their 3-channel crystal controlled mobile CB radios. Had to pick which channels I wanted and buy the crystals. Then later, the TRS-80 computer. Great memories.

[@dockaos924]

Ahh the magic sound of switching channels on TV 😊

[@intel386DX]

I am surprised how perfect quality are those VHS via RF are!

[@stereophonicstuff]

This reminds me of when I wanted to make my own "hotel" TV lineup of analog channels playing the output of several USB media players loaded with TV shows and movies of my choosing. I planned on using three or four Blonder Tongue RF modulators that were plentiful on eBay. However, things got a bit complicated when I realized that I couldn't just use an RF splitter in reverse tied into the main cable drop coming in and furthermore, the analog channels couldn't coexist among the digital channels coming in from the cable company. I ended up shelving the idea, but using something like this, or even the less illegal newer version hooked up locally to just a single TV and using it on an on-demand basis would be a fair compromise. I bet if you hooked up an antenna to the RF output of the video distributor box, the signal would cover your whole house.

[@MoparStephen]

Run the output of the blonder tongue modulators cranked (hot), through an antenna, and they too will broadcast. Not certain of the range though.

[@BattlestarCanada]

Use a ZeeVee Modulator. Does QAM64 and QAM128

[@encycl07pedia-]

Did you ever look into DLNA? Obviously not the same tech, but if you want your own on-demand video service without using something like Plex, a DLNA server is a good option.

[@stereophonicstuff]

@@encycl07pedia- I’ve heard the name before, but know nothing about it. Tell me more! (I’ve looked into using Plex, but it seems a bit overkill for my needs.)

[@wadeadams4263]

When I was a kid in the 60s and 70s we could listen to telephone calls on UHF on our TVs

[@repatch43]

Such an amazing piece of tech! Wish there was something like this that worked with ATSC that didn't cost thousands

[@kFY514]

I'm pretty sure that digital TV modulation introduces obnoxious levels of latency at every step in the chain (including within the TV itself, so the quality of the modulator wouldn't help), so you wouldn't really be able to meaningfully use a remote to the source device over such link. Probably that's one of the reasons why RF modulators only come in the industrial variety in the digital age.

[@AdhamOhm]

​@kFY514 also, there probably isn't much consumer need or demand for a digital ATSC RF modulator, so the devices are pretty much limited to pro or industrial uses. Most modern TVs have multiple HDMI inputs, and some still even have AV/YPbPr combo inputs, so people have plenty of options for video connections. If there's no demand, then there's no drive to innovate a lower-cost device. 30-40 years ago, the typical consumer TV had only one input: the RF tuner. So RF modulators were more of a staple back then compared to now.

[@LatitudeSky]

The modern solution would be IP based over wifi feeding a smart TV. For example, a TV running VLC can load a Playlist of channels. There are actual TV pirates selling that kind of service today. For a local video source, capture it to a PC and live stream it back out on the local network. None of it is as cool as just using a box like this.

[@iamjaychase1]

So awesome, broadcasting!! My grandfather was one of the first ham radio operators back in the late 19teens And worked at the first radio stations in Massachusetts and Connecticut back in late 1920s

[@Eliotime3000]

Now I understand why a few years ago when I used a homemade antenna to tune-up the CATV signal from a stripped cable and the station frequencies were different in RF and CATV.

[@landomilknhoney]

I remember my Dad brought home some similar box type gadget, he connected it to the VHS/VCR and we went from 3-4 local channels to full blown cable and we had MTV!!!!(which we weren't allowed to watch🥲) every now and then when we switched to a fuzzy channel with the weird humming we could catch the neighbors arguing over their cordless (they appeared to be a happy couple, outwardly). Cool video.

[@AlbertInSanAntonio]

Lol

[@badgimp4577]

I had a small radio that went up into that range and I used to pick up "The answering service" which was literally peoples messages. As you can imagine they got pretty interesting.

[@1L6E6VHF]

Sounds like a paging system.

[@jakethetool698]

I remember picking up cordless phones on our old two knob TV. I once heard an old lady tell a friend she wasn’t doing well. “I’m trying to poop”. Damn that was funny

[@haweater1555]

In Toronto in the early 70s, the newly licensed independent station was CITY-TV (that's the actual call letters here in Canada), and the assigned channel was UHF # 79 ! Likely the highest possible frequency available in the area. Why so high? Rumour is that political pressure was put on the CRTC (broadcast regulatory agency), by the owners of the existing established networks. The new station was "set up to fail" , because before cable TV was widespread, they thought "who would bother to twist the channel dial that far up and away from other stations?". After a rocky start, the station won the hearts of the young, " hip", and musical. When the cell phones took over the high UHF band, they were assigned #57 in 1983, still the highest in Toronto. What happened to station? One co-founder retired first, and the other owner died in 2006. The heirs in the family decided they didn't want to bother running what was then a sprawling TV / radio operation across Canada, so they sold it to a media mega conglomerate for billions in cash.

[@James_Knott]

They had at least one other move to 44, with reallocation of more TV channels to cell use. They started in the early 70s (1972?) at about the same time as a few other stations. This was when the Global network started. It was just a few years later, when the Toronto TV and FM stations move to the top of the CN Tower. CITY was bought by CHUM, which owned a few TV and radio stations and then later by Rogers, which is the major cable/cell/broadcast/Internet company in Canada.

[@dougbrowning82]

@@James_Knott Nowadays, CITY TV is an entire network across the country. Its Winnipeg affiliate, CHMI, was formerly an A-Channel station, and an MTN station before that. Its over the air, channel 13.1 high VHF signal is hard to get in the city, because the transmitter is half way to Portage la Prairie, former home to its master control centre.

[@drsysop]

I remember Recoton made a wireless TV one that transmits on multiple UHF channels up to 150 feet. Many modified them to go up to 1 mile & use a roof antenna to do this back in the late 1980's.

[@currentsitguy]

Was that the Video Rabbit? I seem to remember that. When I was young,, back in the 80's I always thought it would be cool to have my own TV station.

[@notsorandumusername]

Back in the seventies, early eighties perhaps, In my country there used to be people who beamed low-power signals to the towers where the official cable tv-signals for the local cable distribution were picked up. They did that late in the evening, right after the official transmissions from the state broadcaster would cease for the day. In other words, they hacked the cable network. So what did they broadcast then? Advertisements, rented movies and of course porn. Basically all the stuff that would make the internet years later.

[@gammaboost]

@@notsorandumusername I'm sure the kids who wanted to watch their favourite TV shows late at night were surprised...

[@DjAle1]

@@notsorandumusername that's awesome

[@drsysop]

@@currentsitguy I remember it but that only did 1 channel.

[@brooks274]

We used to use old TVs to listen to cell phones in 98/99, most of it was still analog. There would also be voicemail and messaging pagers that would come through. Good times.

[@aarongutierrez1597]

I had no idea these existed! It’s like having cast or airplay back then!! I would have so bought these 😢

[@paulstubbs7678]

Strange that they banned it, because it was just a glorified modulator, not an actual transmitter, well not a transmitter with anything more than flea power.

[@vwestlife]

It is a video distribution system. As I mentioned, the power is higher than a typical RF modulator.

[@jamesthompson8008]

This is actually some cool info - though currently considered archaic. Many of us that grew up in the 70s/80s remember those tvs; I know I wondered why would the TV have those channels that didn't show anything. This is a VERY good explanation of some of it, & the comments lean towards filling in the holes.

[@wadmodderschalton5763]

The removal of channels 70-83 on Analog TVs in the mid to late-1980s also coincided with both the Captain Midnight incident and the Max Headroom incident. (1:57)

[@themarlboromandalorian]

Ah. He was actually a time traveler. That's why he did it during an episode of doctor who.

[@WomanOf100Faces]

Best comment and reply I've ever seen. 😂

[@joebudi5136]

Go on. I'm listening.

[@1L6E6VHF]

However, the Captain Midnight and Max Headroom pranks weren't using the same technology as those the super-local RF modulators had.

[@LatitudeSky]

It was just coincidence. The two signal disruptions had nothing to do with each other and used different techniques from each other, and this box had nothing to do with any of that. Other than being in the same decade and being related to TV, it was just a coincidence. The technology was advancing rapidly everywhere.

[@eeengineer8851]

Got curious since I was unaware of this. I have a Emerson ECR-1350 13" color TV with mfg date of Feb 1988. Looks like the tuner does still go to channel 83. I don't recall any UHF channels in my area up there when it was in normal use in the early 90s though. R-S had some unique products for sure.