Hello Martin On 19 May 2012, at 13:55, Martin McCormick <[email protected]> wrote:
• Such is true, here both over the air and on cable. Most Americans get their TV via cable or satellite and only around 10% or so receive over the air signals. I would think that's purely because of the geographical vastness of the US. In fact I'm surprised that they haven't gone that way in Australia and other such countries where the coverage area is so large. Here in the UK you're not dealing with vast open spaces; and it makes more sense to use a combination of the three different media. Over-the-air radio and TV are still the most popular and widely used. We now have 2 different satellite systems in operation; Sky Satellite which is primarily a subscription- based digital system. Then there is what's known as "FreeSat" which is an unencrypted free to air satellite system that's run by the BBC and a number of other broadcasters in partnership. You can buy and install FreeSat systems yourself. Actually, if you know where to look, you can also quite legitimately buy and install Sky Satellite systems yourself and avoid the extortionate installation fees that Sky charge. But that's another matter. I do not pretend to be a technical expert but I gather that in Australia they are still using AM for stereo broadcasting. I've never heard it so cannot comment on how it sounds. But I do know what it used to be like at night trying to listen to radio on AM over distances. Most of the time the signals were patchy at best and there was a lot of fading. We don't get that any longer because most of our services are available now via either FM or satellite. Even the talk stations that broadcast on AM where you don't need the quality are also on satellite, on DAB and on free-view. • There is no hard connection now between tv channel numbers and their actual frequencies. When the United States began the digital transition around 1995, every analog TV transmitter on VHF and UHF was duplicated by a digital allocation wherever it could be found. Channel 4 in Oklahoma City had occupied 66-72 MHZ which is Channel 4 in the Americas since 1949. Their digital channel is 27. In june of 2009, they flipped the big power switch to off on Channel 4 forever and kept their digital channel on UHF. They still call it Channel 4, though, and viewers see Channel 4.1, 4.2 and others when they connect to an antenna and scan their televisions. Each transmitter simply sends out packets every so often identifying what base channel the viewer will know it by. The viewer is unaware of this magic and he or she just presses 4.1 or 8.2 on their remote and it all works. I doubt that it is any different in the UK but different television systems will use all that digital capability in different ways. I really can't comment. But here in the UK there will be no more analogue TV after the third quarter of this year. All of the frequencies are then going to be auctioned off for public mobile radio and mobile telephone use. The shops are offering recycling and disposal services for old TV's and VCR machines. In fact with the exception of so-called combo machines which usually play video cassettes but won't record them, no manufacturer is now producing video cassette recorders for sale here in the UK. • Yes. Hopefully, it will catch on everywhere as much of the technology is just out there for sale to manufacturers who buy a chassis built for maybe the US, British or Korean markets but the user interface will be programmed in American or British English or Korean and they then go out by the boatloads. We all may end up with very similar devices that might differ slightly in hard drive size or who knows what but will more or less be the same machine just customized for the local conditions. I'm sure that will happen at some point. I hope it does; why should blind people in other parts of the world not be able to take advantage of the services available to all other sections of the population locally. • When I worked as a repair technician for our Audio Visual Center, we would open up equipment with a particular brand stamped proudly on the outside only to find that the chassis had been made by a different manufacturer. Sometimes, you find the same device but its en sides might be made by Sony one year and Hitachi the next. It's all about who can do the job for the lowest price. That's common practice I think. • I am glad to be old enough to have seen the tail end of the vacuum-tube era since it makes me appreciate what we have now. We quickly forget such things as how often tubes burned out and how much interference people just endured in the days. I don't really recall those valve TV's myself. But there again I wouldn't have known one if I'd seen one.! • During Solar peaks, we could hear those BBC/NTL transmitters on a good day from about 8:30 in the morning in the US until around 14:30 or so in our afternoons which would be 20:30 in the UK or well past dark there in Winter. And yet we never got any of the American signals as far as I know. • The UK transmitters were around 41.5 MHZ on several frequencies and then the French had several audio transmitters around 41.25 MHZ so one could tune back and forth and hear either a jumble of French voices or a jumble of British voices. The British voices were more jumbled because many of the NTL transmitters while identifying themselves as BBC1 transmitted local programming during parts of the afternoon which meant you might hear Welsh from Wales or a program in English from BBC1 Northern Ireland at the same time. yes, regional TV was much more commonplace than it is now. Our TV markets have changed beyond recognition in the last few years. In the 60s 70s and very early 80s we had no daytime TV; it was just the test card. I think it was around 1981 that our TV stations went 24/7. • At 17:45 or 5:45 P.M, all transmitters simultaneously relayed BBC1 "News Round." Ah yes, John Craven. • Between 1978 and 1980, I was job hunting so had lots of time to waste listening to things like this so I even have some recordings of BBC1 afternoon programming and French ORTF TV sound, some of which is amazingly clear at times. Those were the good old days. • AM sound can have as much fidelity as digital or FM but all that noise and the whine of heterodynes and the fact that the capture ratio in AM is atrocious makes AM the oil lamp of radio communications. It was a start, but we have so much better thing now. Quality of signal is better now; but quality of programming has deteriorated dramatically. 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