I saw a little Ramsey TV Transmitter kit, 90% built for sale on ebay going for next to nothing.
It runs off a 9V battery, but I’ll probably hotwire it to run off a wall-wart.
I saw a little Ramsey TV Transmitter kit, 90% built for sale on ebay going for next to nothing.
It runs off a 9V battery, but I’ll probably hotwire it to run off a wall-wart.
Lets see if I win the bid, it did have a buy it now of $15 though.
Wee Lil TeeeVeee
Ahh yes the Ramsey TV-6. Back in 1996 when chief engineering for KOSA TV Ch7 in Odessa Tx, we held the first ever live news broadcasts that station ever did from the Ector County Fair Grounds. I had designed the station’s first ENG live truck and ICR system in neighboring Midland on 7Ghz. Ironically the station was the first television station in the Odessa/Midland area and it took 50 plus years for them to finally get an ENG setup and remote live capabilities from Midland..they had to wait for me I guess! 😉
Anyway, during the fair, we had 2 stage cameras, and 2 roving cameras. The roving cameras were tied in to the ENG truck via 100 foot long cables so they could not roam around very far.
Then I remembered I had one of those Ramsey TV-6 units and attached it to the back of spare camera we had in the ENG truck. I set up a 6 element home made yagi receiving antenna on a rotor to the ENG mast, powered the TV-6 unit directly from the camera’s battery pack, fed it video through a short piece of video cable with BNC connectors and a BNC-RCA adaptor for the TV-6. Since this was an experiment, I did not bother with audio because the audio portion in the TV-6 uses a simple 4.5Mhz sub carrier. The experiment was to get a wireless..or in this case a cable-less roving camera to get bumper video shots before the breaks while the news background bumper theme music played.
I used a regular portable TV for the receiver of this roaming cable-less camera experiment that had video and audio outputs. Tied that into a spare DA in the rack, fed that into a TBC and wala, we had a roving camera that could cover the entire fair grounds area!
The TV-6 unit used a whip antenna wrapped with a couple layers of rubber sheeting and then sealed with shrink wrap for stability. It worked so well we caught the attention of the KWES crew who was also out there doing their newscasts. Well after they saw our little experiment, their engineers came over and marveled at the simplicity of the whole thing and could not believe that TV-6 unit had such a good signal coverage and excellent video.
Sure was fun. The following year, KWES did the same thing we did the year before! (copy cats!!) 😀
I am sure you will enjoy that little TV-6 unit. Easily modifiable for PLL control. A very useful little black box that got its chance in real big boy television..and proved itself beautifully!
RFB
THEY HAVE IT
Ramsey has the TV6C
http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/site/default.asp?search=TV6C&page=search&x=21&y=6
Still In Stock
Yeah…I think however the idea is to snag one at a much much lower price..considering the design is 15+ years old and no real major improvements have been made to it by Ramsey.
Same idea with the coupler eh Carl?! Why fork out over 400 for one when you just might catch one for 1/3 that price!!
RFB
I Won
Well I won the Bid, I ended up paying 9.02 for it.
Someone jumped it at the last second, but little did they know I had a max bid sitting in there.
TV3 Coming Soon To Rabbit Ears Near You!
We Have A Winner!
“TV3 Coming Soon To Rabbit Ears Near You!”
That’s good to hear! Though it does not look like much internally, that little kit has a lot of uses…and potential!
RFB
Wee Lil TeeeVeee
Love your TV-6 post from the KOSA days as it brought back lots of memories. I was an engineer at big fun Channel 7 from ’84-’89. We had just got the ENG gear in ’85, our Live Truck was the station pickup with lots of cable, rope and a ladder. We had so much fun doing remotes, actually hoisting the antenna to roof tops. KMID got a nice ENG suburban with an on board mast shortly thereafter and channel 9 (then KTPX) had no ENG. KWES was the “Hot 102 FM” a new flame thrower CHR station I was jocking at as well. There were several FM pirates and radio was good back then, ahhh good times in the Permian Basin.
I assume the TV-6 is an analog xmtr, do they make a DTV xmtr?
Good Times
“assume the TV-6 is an analog xmtr, do they make a DTV xmtr?”
Yes the TV-6 unit is analog. I have read on the Ramsey forum many requests of Ramsey to make a digital counterpart of the TV-6.
Not sure that will happen though.
I also remember KMID’s suburban. A well built, but severely over-loaded suburban that had to have the rear axle leaf springs beefed up so much just to handle the weight. And that suburban was not easy to handle in those west Texas winds! I know..I drove that silly thing dozens of times on live shots!
My time at KMID was from late 89 to 92. Im sure you probably know who Doug F. and Chuck C. is. Doug was chief at the time. That place was well designed and built up with engineering in mind. Everything was easy to get at…well except for that “hell hole” behind the engineering station that ran across the hallway between master control and the production control room. It sure made the news people angry when the floor plates were removed to run cables or whatever! They would have to go around their normal route while rushing onto the set while the news intro was airing! Oh ya…Becky N, Skip B, Mike B, J.G. Lunn, oh what fun it was!! 🙂
I certainly do not miss the “click and bang” noise from that tape room with the wall to wall 2 inch Ampex decks and row of BVH-1000 1 inch decks. My ears rang at the end of every shift! So much so that I began to hear rushing air all the time from those air compressors for the 2 inch head assemblies on those Ampex machines! Draining that huge air tank outside every day.
It was exciting regardless! Especially reviving that old GE tube backup transmitter Chuck C. couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t getting any exciter drive. Turned out to be a shorted bypass capacitor on the output tank. Was a good thing the backup TX was fixed because the main needed to be re-tubed shortly thereafter.
And I remember the weekly calibrating routine done at that station. We went through everything, from A to Z. THAT was REAL engineering! 🙂
RFB
Came In Today
Well the TV transmitter arrived today,
but while I was tuning it I broke the tuning coil,
I’ll have to find a replacement for that.
Although Before I “Blew It” (as Ramsey puts its) I had about 2 seconds of video on VHF 3, before losing its tuning spot.
Coil Update
Ramsey will be sending me a new coil apparently free of charge.
Talk about customer service!
Ramsey TV 6
I have heard that the Ramsey TV 6 does have
one interesting problem, and I don’t know the
answer about curing it.
I have heard people say that if you run the TV 6
with audio and video, and try to receive it on
an analog television, sometimes it’s troublesome.
You can’t always get both the video and audio
at the same time. In other words, if you get a
good picture, then you have to retune the TV
for good audio. Once you have the good audio,
the picture isn’t good.
Somewhere on YouTube, there is a guy that demonstrates
this problem.
Maybe it was just the case with his TV-6. Maybe he did
something wrong during assembly.
Best Wishes,
Bruce, Dog Radio Studio 2
Coil Arrived
The Coil Arrived Today, way before my batteries or solder.
I’ll try to find a plastic tuning coil to avoid trashing the new coil.
On TV
The Crow, I think your TV project is very important to the Part 15 movement, and I am hoping you continue to describe the technical side and the programming side as you go along, because others may become motivated to start small TV stations.
I started a KDX-TV for a short time, based on the Channel 14 low power transmitter I have, however channel 14 has been removed from TV service and is now a land-mobile frequency space. But the old channel 14 still exists on cable tv, although the cable company has put some other station on that space.
I had a KDX-TV web page with links to public domain movies and embedded programming from sources that offered it, but I got spooked by the news that the insane government was going to accuse video linkers of copyright crime, EVEN WHEN THEY HAD PERMISSION TO LINK. Kind of a Stalinesque perversion of law.
Right now I am trying to locate a rational source of information about the status of things.
Update
Started tuning the unit today, using a metal tool.
Got some Video on Chan. 5, I’ll probably settle on 5 or 6, since those are easier to tune with
(I have several radios that cover that are)
Still waiting on my Solder, the solder left over from the other coil isn’t quite enough to fasten this larger coil intended for the TV-6C.
Watching Question
What will Crow TV3 watchers watch?
What kind of programming?
Watching Question
Good Questions from Carl Blare!
What will Crow TV3 watchers watch?
Movies and Music Videos, along with some TV Shows.
Movies will mostly be the Public Domain ones, some of which are actually quite good.
Halloween outta be fun, there are a ton of free Horror Movies, some so bad they’re funny! and some so good you should have to pay for them.
Old Films
The Crow is absolutely right that some of the old public domain movies are good. For a short time I had a TV page with links to a few of those movies.
OTS AV Video Automation
OTS AV Has Video Automation For music videos movies and shows too.
to carl blaire
hey carl which cable company in st louis missouri?
The Cable
ABMedia1, we have Cheater Cable Company. No, that doesn’t sound right, oh ya, it’s Charter.
Amazing story of deception to tell, coming soon on my radio program.
NOTICE: Any resemblance between Cheater Cable Company and any actual cable company is a pure coincidence. Cheater Cable Company is a fiction intended to parody a generic composite of a shady cable operation in an imaginary world.
Tuning
This thing is an absolute pain to tune.
I’ll try again tomorrow.
I did get close though, actually saw color, but not close enough.
A bit Of Crow Cheating
I cheated a bit and purchased a UHF Transmitter, just in case The Ramsey goes no where.
So there could be two TV projects!
Also And
Also, The Crow, you may already remember that tv modulators can be used as tv transmitters. I have two Blonder-Tongue professional units, channels 7 and 13, and they will feed a 50-ohm antenna with up to 10-watts! A buddy of mine used to send his neighbors movie videos back when VCRs where new.
When my late wife and I had a pro video service, we had house-wide cable and used those two channels to send production clips back and forth and watch videos at the breakfast table.
The narrator booth could see his slide-show on TV while recording a script.
What fun it was.
Oh, that reminds me that I want to start a leaky-cable radio station in the yard….. that calls for a whole new thread.
PS: What UHF channel?
UHF Channel
Thats pretty Cool Carl!
The UHF transmitter is arriving supposedly on Chan. 15. But can apparently tune through the UHF Band.
If thats the case I’ll move it to Chan. 25.
Preston, Texas @ Lake Texoma Used to have Charter
when my family rented a lake house in preston @ lake texoma preston used to have charter then allegiance bought it, it was originally owned by grayson county cable, weird history to it too. i loved that cable because when we rented the house for the weekend we got the cable for free!!!!!
Cable Talk
For the month I’ve had basic tv cable, based on the offer that by accepting it along with my phone and internet, the total price would actually go down during a 6-month special. But the special price only lasted 1-month, and now the cost is way way up to the top.
I went to their office and asked them to remove the tv, “please.”
While I had the basic tv I was amazed how trashy the channels were. Jewelry for sale, spastic preachers going into silly fits as if divine energy was goosing them, re-runs of re-runs of re-runs, and infomercials for carpet cleaning systems from Mars.
But I did wonder if there was a way of getting KDX audio on the cable, that sort of thing has been done on some systems, but every channel had its own soundtrack so probably no place for KDX.
And if The Crow TV got its own cable channel that would be an improvement over what’s on now. I’d keep it if that happened.
Question
I have a question, How in the living hell do I tune the Ramsey TV transmitter?! I can never get the screen to go black, but If I plug some video into the transmitter the screen will light up, but it’s always off frequency.
Note 2:
The UHF Transmitter I bought doubles as a Cable modulator as well, maybe If I had cable I could pump the signal into the Cable System.
Not Sure About the One
The one I’m not sure about is how to tune-up the Ramsey TV transmitter. I wonder if you need something like a time-base corrector to provide a stable video input. I hope you talk with Ramsey, the guy I once talked to there about AM25 was very knowledgeable.
As for cable, yes, you in fact could locate an un-used frequency on your cable and pump a signal in, but it may not go far.
The way Cheater Cable Company had mine wired up for “Basic TV,” there were a handful of incoming signals and the rest of the channels were all blank. But for more $$$ they can “activate” those other channels out at the pole so I’d get “premium tv,” which is better bad programming.
So, if I modulated, say, channel 76 from in here, it would only come in on this side of the pole. Out there there’s probably a channel 76 with something like Showtime.
If you did find a channel that reached the whole city cable system it would break the law, unless you had an agreement with the cable company. Breaking the law is punishable by being broken once they find you.
What we had was our own internal cable with modulators and tvs so we could manage it ourselves, but it did not connect to the outer world.
Back So Soon
Thinking about TV stirs up a lot of thoughts, past and future.
One of these days I may go on for awhile about past TV/video experience, but tonight let’s do future talk.
For a long time I have been fascinated by the technology we now have to send video so easily over the web. There are webcams, video streams, downloadable video files, to name three.
I still have pro video equipment from when we produced videos for clients, but those days are gone by. But tomorrow it would be possible to use the equipment to send something over the internet. Getting a picture that moves is a big challenge. Some people transmit their bird feeder, which can be fun. I once saw a camera on a model railroad setup which I loved, but whoever was doing it must have lost interest and stopped it. Showing a pet is popular.
One thing I would like to show from time to time is someone watching tv, seen from a side profile. It is fascinating that a human will sit almost still and stare at, what essentially is a box against a wall, for an hour or more. Many people like to have snack food. Of course this would be an entirely proper scene, no objectionable material.
However, unlike radio where interest can be held for hours, video is very demanding and people quickly become bored. We always want to see “something else.” There is a huge psychological obstacle in keeping tv viewers.
But the subject is endlessly interesting.
Yours truly,
All think and no action
don’t know
Jim i said the same thing when i first tuned the Ramsey am transmitter when i was operating the 670 daytimer before i made the switch to the talking house and frequencies i don’t know what to tell you since i never done part 15 TV i’ll search it up and see if i can find anything
UHF Today
Got my UHF Transmitter today. Got a solid picture on UHF 17.
Looks like The Crow TV will be on UHF 17.
Channel 17 Goes Back to Work
Good for channel 17, which has been unemployed for who knows how long in your area. Maybe it never had a station. Now it does.
Happy transmitter.
Speaking Of The Crow
Speaking of the crow i was listening to the crow online today, and good music too. keep the oldies comin’ jim lol!
Part 15 television
This is my first post on here.
I stumbled on this discussion while searching “Part 15 TV” and just wanted to join and thank everyone who have contributed all of the useful information.
It is nice to see a Part 15 TV-friendly thread.
I am interested in starting a part 15 television station in my area.
We have but one analog channel left since the digital transition. It is actually a LPTV station, and from conversations with the station’s manager, it’s days are numbered.
Digital reception in my area is sketchy at best, unless you consider the one PBS channel that we get over an inside loop.
There are several blank channels, meaning 3 channels away from any digital RF channels, in my area. Most are located over 60 miles away across hilly and mountainous terrain. So I think there might be a legitimate need for some Part 15 TV in this area.
I have played around with part 15 am & fm over the years and feel that I am ready to journey into the realms of Part 15 Television.