This information also applies to the original CC Radio II as well as the II/E
I did a podcast on the CC Radio II a couple of years ago in which I noted the new and changed features of the CC II over the original CC Radio and CC Radio plus models. One of the big changes was the absence of the Television Receiving facility, this band was left out because of the change from the Analogue TV to Digital TV in the U.S., the TV band was replaced with the 2 metre ham band. Many people have written to me privately asking me if I knew why this change was made and why the people at CCrane didn't include the digital TV band instead of the 2 metre Ham band. I have to admit to not knowing an answer to that until a few hours ago when a friend of mine relayed information onto me from the tech people at CC which confirmed some of my own private thoughts on this matter and - as I now have confirmation - I can share with you the reasons for the absence of a Digital TV band. When the Analogue TV band was in use all channels had their own dedicated frequency's on the spectrum for broadcasting thus the audio was there being transmitted and waiting for a compatible receiver to receive it. The way Digital Television - and Digital Radio in Australia - is transmitted is quite different and one could say its revolutionary compared to older systems that were in use. All the output from the combined Television stations - Audio and Video - is fed into what's called a multi plexer, this device encodes the various outputs into one stream and sends it to the transmitter which then transmits the digital signal for your Digital Television to decode. Now a radio could do this but for a radio the decoding poses some challenging problems, the who signal has to be decoded which means that the video has to be decoded as well as the audio which takes quite some processing to do so its not like the old days when all the receiver had to do was to receive the audio and ignore the video where appropriate. CCrane built some prototype receivers to see if the problem could be tackled and here's the real point, a set of 4 Alkaline D Cell batteries lasts 180 hours presently in the CC II/E but if a Digital TV Encoder is included then the battery life is only 7 minutes or thereabouts so you can see the extra power required for the processing and decoding of a signal which just isn't worth doing in a radio of this kind. For those who want just audio from a tV broadcast then your best bet would be to buy a Set Top Box with audio outputs or a small Digital TV with an output which will allow powered speaker connection, I know in Australia several models of portable TV which can fit in your hand are available. ********** Dane Trethowan Skype: grtdane12 Phone US (213) 438-9741 Phone U.K. 01245 79 0598 Phone Australia (03) 9005 8589 Mobile: +61400494862 Fax +61397437954
