TV question

[blknomad]

I just got a new 2014 Itasca that has a Jenson tv in the bedroom. When I run a channel scan for the air antena, it comes up with RF CH and a number plus found and a number. Now question is what does the RF CH mean? Is it more channels and how do you access them?

[Tom_M1]

TV broadcasts are assigned the same channel frequencies as in the analog days. The only difference today is that the TV broadcast band ends at RF channel 51. The higher channels were auctioned off. Each channel is allotted a 6Mhz bandwidth. If a TV broadcast was interfering with the ham band or ham interfered with TV the FCC would not be pleased.

[wa8yxm]

I am not worried about hams watching the encrypted transmissions from the Robot, Im worried about ham transmissions wiping out said transmissions so the police receiver can not pick 'em up.

And of course the interference to ham radio as well. I mean what were those idiots thinking putting it in a ham band and the other ones approving it?

Oh, and my boss.. he wanted me to join a group promoting the stupid thing, Guess what, I said NO!

[Sully2]

Passin Thru wrote:
NOw they are starting on Ham Radio Frequencies too. Everything is about greed and money.

You are 100% correct!

[SCVJeff]

wa8yxm wrote:

Passin Thru wrote:
NOw they are starting on Ham Radio Frequencies too. Everything is about greed and money.

That has been going on for years, There is a company that however parked a police surveillance robot smack in the middle of a popular ham band And the FCC allowed it (Gave 'em a waiver)

As a civilian member of the police community, AND a ham, this seriously concerns me.. I can just see some ham, unable to hear the little 3 watt transmitter in this box, Keying his half gallon rig and wiping out the video the police are counting on and some officer winds up dead due to the device's failure to inform.

Very stupid of them, and I'd advise all police from buying that little Recon-Bot.

There is a very easy fix for that. Make sure that the ATV community knows it's there, then go call the PD ( not the radio shop), and let them know that every ham in town has the capability to watch their transmissions, and watch what happens.

DEA tried this years ago on the broadcast ENG band, and were furious when they found out that every broadcaster in Los Angeles could see any number of transmitters they had operation at the time around the city, and better than they could.

They're not there anymore.....

[SCVJeff]

JimM68 wrote:
This thread is the main reason I've gone satellite.

Every time you move, you have to know where, and crank the batwing to face, the available local channels. Then do a channel scan on your TV(s).

Where you used to have (in our case in Chicago) 2 - 5 - 7 - 9 - 32 as your local over the air networks, you will not have a bunch of stuff, including lots of DOT somethings. (2.1, 2.2, 5.90, whatever...)

The new federally mandated digital broadcasting has mandated compression which permits 10 channels in the broadcast space that 1 USED TO TAKE.

Iyt's all very confusing, especially if you are camping mobile in a rig with analog TV's...

We just went with dish. As long as I can watch nascar it's all good.

I'm missing the point of your post.

Nobody has MANDATED compression. We are allowed to insert whatever we can fit in the allocated spectrum in an ATSC digital format. That's not the compression equipment (and that is nothing that you the viewer need to understand nor be concerned about), but if you attempt to stick 10 channels of anything in that space it will all look like crap, that's why there is only a handful of tiny non-network stations selling anything they can and the customer doesn't care what their religious program, etc. looks like. As far as searching for channels, it's a no-brainier anymore. There are several companies that make devices to turn this into a complete non-problem. Raise the antenna, look for carriers, and do a scan... Done. And in Chicago it's about as simple as it gets. Either point toward the city, or peak the antenna in one direction since all the transmitters are in two buildings a few miles apart.

To your DOT point.. I don't get the problem. You have the same number of channels with the same programming that you used to have, AND many more sub-channels riding on those channels. Don't want to watch them? Don't....

Camping with analog TV's can be fixed with set-top converters that operate exactly like a digital TV. If you choose not to upgrade the TV in any way, that's a different problem. Satellite is not the be-all, end-all solution unless you have a portable antenna and lots of coax for tree shadowing, and if you don't care to watch local channels wherever you go.

[wa8yxm]

Passin Thru wrote:
NOw they are starting on Ham Radio Frequencies too. Everything is about greed and money.

That has been going on for years, There is a company that however parked a police surveillance robot smack in the middle of a popular ham band And the FCC allowed it (Gave 'em a waiver)

As a civilian member of the police community, AND a ham, this seriously concerns me.. I can just see some ham, unable to hear the little 3 watt transmitter in this box, Keying his half gallon rig and wiping out the video the police are counting on and some officer winds up dead due to the device's failure to inform.

Very stupid of them, and I'd advise all police from buying that little Recon-Bot.

[JimM68]

This thread is the main reason I've gone satellite.

Every time you move, you have to know where, and crank the batwing to face, the available local channels. Then do a channel scan on your TV(s).

Where you used to have (in our case in Chicago) 2 - 5 - 7 - 9 - 32 as your local over the air networks, you will not have a bunch of stuff, including lots of DOT somethings. (2.1, 2.2, 5.90, whatever...)

The new federally mandated digital broadcasting has mandated compression which permits 10 channels in the broadcast space that 1 USED TO TAKE.

Iyt's all very confusing, especially if you are camping mobile in a rig with analog TV's...

We just went with dish. As long as I can watch nascar it's all good.

[MNtundraRet]

blknomad wrote:
I just got a new 2014 Itasca that has a Jenson tv in the bedroom. When I run a channel scan for the air antena, it comes up with RF CH and a number plus found and a number. Now question is what does the RF CH mean? Is it more channels and how do you access them?

When you do the scan on your television, the screen is showing the numbers of channels found during the search with the antenna aimed in whatever direction you pointed it. Some brands of TV searches count this example (5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4) as 4 channels found, some say 1 channel found. I had sets doing each of these ways.

One thing to remember is that you might not find all stations located (rotate the channel+ button) by leaving the antenna aimed in the one direction. If a channel or two are missing, stay on the channel and slowly rotate the antenna slowly until the signal is picked up for that specific channel. Not all located signals come from the same transmitter.

[Passin_Thru]

NOw they are starting on Ham Radio Frequencies too. Everything is about greed and money.

[wa8yxm]

blknomad wrote:
I just got a new 2014 Itasca that has a Jenson tv in the bedroom. When I run a channel scan for the air antena, it comes up with RF CH and a number plus found and a number. Now question is what does the RF CH mean? Is it more channels and how do you access them?

In days of old when broadcastes were bolt the FCC assigned some specific channels, 1 through 82 ultimately, for their use, Well nobody used 1 so not it is the Six Meter ham band. (thank you) and 70-82 went away cause they also were not popular. That left 68 channels.

And you selected the channel with your tuner, Channel 2 was, 56 MHZ center if I recall (Chan 2) I have a list if you want the rest.

But with the switch to DIGITAL, they are no longer called Channels, they are called Services, and ... the "Channel Number" on your screen no longer equates to frequency.

For example (This is from Detroit)
Channel 2-1 and 2-2 (Channel 2) now broadcast on what used to be channel 7's frequency
Channel 7 (-1-2-3) now use Channel 41.

That said, some stations still use their original frequency (Channels 7 and 13 near me here in Upstate S.C. both use their original assigned frequencies)

THE GOOD NEWS, is you do not (normally) need to know this stuff, Your television's control computer figures it out when you do a Scan, remembers it so when, for example I tune to chan 7-2 in Detroit, it tunes to channel 41 and away we go. (Or here in the Upstate it tunes to chan 7) Very confusing to humans, not so much for the computer.

The FCC would like to get everyone off the VHF bands and for the most part has gotten everyone off VHF-Low band (2-6) though there are still a few holdouts.. VHF-Hi has proven a bit harder to vacate.

You see. they have re-sold those frequencies to others.

[Tom_M1]

The RF channel is the actual or real channel that a transmitter sends out. Embedded within the TV signal is information such as time, program title, program information, and virtual channel. This embedded data is known as PSIP (Program and System Information Protocol). The channel number displayed on your TV will be the virtual channel number. During the digital transition period when TV stations broadcasted both analog and digital signals, the digital signal was on a different RF channel than the analog signal. For instance, in Minneapolis channel 11 broadcasted their digital signal on channel 35, but your TV would display channel 11.

[dougrainer]

The RF channel is the channel that the TV station uses to broadcast its signal. Before the conversion to digital, TV stations were normally identified by their channel number, and most people knew that a particular network was on a specific TV channel. RF channels 2 through 13 are considered VHF, and RF channels 14 through 51 are considered UHF. There is more to this, but this is the simple explanation. Doug