I’ve never done this. I know it can’t be legal – is it? This is only a wild brainstorm to see if any one has tried it or is thinking of doing it.
I’ve never done this. I know it can’t be legal – is it? This is only a wild brainstorm to see if any one has tried it or is thinking of doing it.
The thought came to me that one can still get North American analog cable TV channels (Hyperband) 63 and 64 and they have audio channels that are very close to FRS/GMRS walkie-talkie frequencies. I was wondering if someone where to solder in a F-Connector-RG59U cable to the antenna output of a FRS/GMRS unit, employ a battery eliminator power adapter to avoid battery drain with holding down PTT, use a cable splitter to enter their cable TV service, and connect the W/T to the analog cable service in their house; what would happen if they tried to do a QSO across town with a partner using a similar W/T on same FRS/GMRS channel? That may work as the cable company probably is not bandpass filtering this frequency range (UHF 460-467 mHz).
However, if the W/T audio on your cable TV set was off-frequency a bit can you make your cable-ready TV or cable box detune a bit to pull it in? Probably not. Or would changing the W/T frequency help? Maybe not. The frequency on your cable TV box for audio on channels 63 is 461.75 mHz and 64 is 467.75 mHz. FRS/GMRS is from 462.5625 to 467.725 mHz. Audio channel is FM just like the W/T’s. The FM audio bandwidth on the TV is a bit large so it may be able to pickup all narrow bandwidth W/T units just fine – no matter what FRS/GMRS channel set to.
If any of this works could this be a alternative cable TV pirate broadcast medium for your town or community? Cable companies are usually per-town/city monopolies. Meaning this would NOT work statewide or national – only within your community or town. The cable company may not find out about it if they don’t already have programming on analog 63 or 64. Its worth an experiment for the brave of heart – or not…
Please let me know your comments. Pirates and virtual-Boy-Scouts (i.e. Dudley-Do-Rights) are all welcome to comment… (LOL)
Spooky
Diddly Done Dumb Thing
As I posted in your duplicate blog, it’s illegal and it’s pirating the cable system.
Not only will you face charges from the FCC..but the cable company too.
Don’t be a Duddly Dumb Dumb. Do it the right way..contact the cable company and state your proposal. You never know, they may just work with you…probably for a monthly fee..but at least everything will be legal and approved.
RFB
good luck getting onto cable
good luck getting onto cable system. they most likely won’t let you even if you do pay them. you most likely don’t have the political clout to get the job done. they seem to only let schools, governments and major broadcasting corporations on to their systems anymore. was easy to get a cable fm going when the local systems were locally owned but that changed in the late 80’s when all the cable systems in the us started getting owned by a very small handful of very large corporations.
So – I went to the local
So – I went to the local Cable Company and asked them what they thought – if the equipment injecting the audio offered no interference to adjacent channels, and if it did not interfere with nearby hardware, they would like to see this work.
The local CC’s (not time warner, et al) are struggling for ideas on how to retain subscribers.
So – I went to the local
@mlr – Well I’m surprised at their answer to you. I trust you didn’t ask a executive management person? I can see a installer or technician saying this though. I think my idea would probably be a bit disruptive as the RF power output on FRS/GMRS is well over 1 watt. It could cause harmonics and stuff in subscriber’s systems that where close to the injection point. However, since the stated frequencies are within normal cable bandwidth, the cable company would amplify (and/or attenuate) the signal all throughout the system allowing the audio content to travel throughout the multi-town/city system. It would definitively exceed the normal range of a FRS/GMRS transmitter.
Being that the audio bandwidth on a cable TV set is wide almost any FRS/GMRS channel could be heard at once. If the cable TV franchise likes the idea then they could modify the idea to be a quasi-chat channel between FRS units. No broadcasts just a CB-like chat forum that TV viewers could monitor.
A physical tap would not be required if the cable company could supply an UHF inductive tap for the subscriber. The inductive tap would just go over the top of the walkie-talkie and a cable would go to a UHF RF amplifier that goes into the cable head-end on your street block. That would guarantee an attenuated signal entering the injection point.
If they could keep the audio bandwidth free on those two channels and just put up a video-only scroller or video splash screen that introduces the concept and how to pay to get in on the fun.
Just an idea to kick around and expand on later. That’s why I called it BRAINSTORMING.
Spooky
Inquiring Minds Want To Know…
I’m curious as to how the signal injected from an end users location can back feed the distribution amplifier.
Our local cable distributes head-end signals over fiber optic cable. The fiber plant takes the signal to distribution amps located around the area. The distribution amps feed clusters of subscribers.
Perhaps the distribution amps are bi-directional?
Wild Claims
On the Alex Jones Show a few months back he announced that cable providers were implanting video cameras that were inside of the green LED lights on the cable box so they could watch their customers. Needless to say, if this were true, there would need to be an “upstream” technology in place to allow sending all these video signals back to the head-end.
I am now putting vision blocking cardboard to block all my LED lights.
Digital Cable Boxes
Since the newer Digital Cable boxes are interactive, being able to send viewing requests to the provider, I can believe a “webcam” type of setup within the cable box would be possible. But that’s a LAN/WAN IP type of signal just like DSL over cable.
The previous discussion regarding injecting an RF signal would be a different animal.
Speculating cable tv audio..
A little off topic, but still in reference to cable tv audio..
I have noticed at an elderly friends house, he uses Comcast and often when I come in he will have the all the tv’s in his living room, dining room, and kitchen all on with the volume loudly blaring.. And I’ve noticed that there seems to be a fraction of a second delay in the audio between the individual television sets; so when all tv’s are on it sounds like a little echo is occurring.
In other words, they are not perfectly synced in reception. I find this surprising since they are all from a single source.. I assume it must have something to do with the individual cable boxes on each tv.
Anyway, It has been in the back of my mind for some time to eventually, when I get more transmitters, to possibly work out something with the city to utilize the islands local public cable channel as an audio source to feed multiple transmitters, because most of the time our cable channel just displays a rotating “playlist” of local information text with images, with some music playing in the background, and sometimes with no audio at all ..
Now this is all just a what-if situation, that may not even be feasible with the legal requirements of a public channel, but suppose it did happen that our public cable channel were to carry my stations audio.. Well, based on my observances at my elderly friends house – I began now to doubt that I could have a properly synchronized feed even via the public cable channel… HOWEVER, if the delay is happening only in the cable reception boxes themselves, then perhaps by not using the cable boxes at all the delay would be eliminated.
Comments?
Digital Cable
Perhaps the cable system is digital, something I’ve read about. Articles have revealed that some cable companies throw away some of the HD quality of a TV channel so they can squeeze more channels into the pipe. Your neighbor might have more than one digital to analog converter, which would explain the delay.
Buffer and the Vampire…
I’ve noticed the same effect at the local Big Box stores where they have a wall of TV’s all set to the same channel.
I always figured each digital TV probably buffers the digital signal and that would introduce some delay.
I find the delay when changing channels to be annoying as you can’t quickly flip through the channels. Really sucks.
Injecting…
@kc8gpd – In my brainstorm I envisioned the “INJECTOR” person already having a paid cable tv account and hopefully nothing was on those two channels in question. Even if it where the signal might overpower the existing audio which would be disruptive to the cable provider. Like I said I never performed this and have no plans to do so. It would involve a direct tap to the FRS unit’s antenna tap into the a cable splitter in your house. However, taping into the antenna ckt of an FRS is already a FCC violation I think.
Dudley?
@RFB – Oops I have a duplicate posting? I didn’t mean to do that. Tell me where it is and I’ll delete it if I can.
The history of Why?
Analog NTSC television and VHS tape worked and nobody was complaining.
Therefore it needed to be replaced.
Digital TV was introduced in an ever changing array of formats and aspect ratios, forcing everyone to dispose of old equipment and begin a regular succession of upgrades that never reach a stopping point.
Digital video makes copying and sharing easy for the average man, so that piracy charges can be filed in massive numbers.
Lawyers and equipment suppliers have grins that can only be removed surgically.
Replying to MOST of the postings…
To All,
OK here is an attempt to address most if not all of your replies:
1) Fiber Optics – I think that some cable companies are doing this for their digital only customers – I could be wrong. However FIBER has the bandwidth to handle RF up into UHF frequencies or higher. All they would need is some sort of optical-transverter I think. Since analog remote-site COMMUNITY TV is still being done country wide they have to allow for analog RF injection from a remote site. In other words – the COMMUNITY TV camera video transmitter has to be apply to feed into the analog head-end to distribute to all other analog viewers on the system. Therefore the head-end is probably bi-directional. The digital subscribers would have to see analog Community TV via some conversion process at the Cable HQ or something.
2) Alex Jones – I wouldn’t trust too much what Alex and Texxe Marr say but he is PARTIALLY correct. A interactive Cable TV project with end-user video camera feedback was prototyped in Chicago Illinois back in the 1990’s I think. However, turning on the camera was totally up to the end-user. But I imagine that some sneaky programmer could have put in a “back-door” to activate it. I know former FBI Director Louie Freeh would be all for some sort of invasive citizen-spying system like this. I don’t know what became of this idea to put cameras in cable TV boxes. However, I do know that the digital boxes are fully addressable by Cable Provider – meaning they can CONTROL your box remotely. Putting in a pin-hole camera would be unethical if not illegal without your knowledge. Get that new camera lens detector from your local spy store and find out ( http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/sf-103.html ).
3) An elderly person’s cable TV’s where all out of synch and causing echos? Well most cable providers are going digital these days. The hysteresis on converting the digital signal to A/V can be somewhat dicey and different boxes process at different speeds only off by milliseconds. That could cause a noticeable echo. Ever try watching a cable TV feed of a local network affiliate (i.e. NBC, CBS, etc.) while listening to the new Over-The-Air digital feed of same thing? Very noticeable hysteresis delay.
4) Digital TV woes. Oh well just wait there are more woes. Now we find out you can’t watch digital TV in a moving platform (i.e. in your minivan for the people in back seat, on a bus, in an airplane?). You can only watch it at home or office or in a stationary vehicle (in optimum position too). Yup introducing a NEW technology for you to waste money on MOBILE Digital TV. In my area, CONNECTICUT, we have only ONE TV station out of many transmitting that SPECIAL new format. And no it’s not as simple as employing an high-tech diversity antenna system which I incorrectly thought would be the solution (i.e. multipath rejection?). It’s some new technology I’m still trying to figure out how they do it. FCC isn’t sharing either.
Spooky