Pirate TV

[hydrophilic]

In the USA, television stations have begun to advertise ("public announcement") about the fact that analog TV transmissions will end in February 2009.  That's fine, but it they are repeating the message ad nauseum.

Which got me to thinking about retro TV.  I think it would be loads of fun to broadcast analog TV.  Kind of like a pirate radio station.  With a Commodore 128 and a wire stuck into the RF output, I can already broadcast on channel 3 or 4.  Not very far like that, mind you.  But with a cheap RF amp and real antenna, I could probably broadcast to the neighborhood.  You know, have SAM do the voice and the VIC do animated multi-color displays.  I really have no idea what to broadcast, but it still sounds like fun.

The VHF broadcast frequency for TVs is pretty low by todays standards, below 86MHz for channels 2~6.  It seems like these would be the easiest to work with.  I'm sure I can get my hands on an Atari 2600 which has a channel 2/3 RF modulator.  Channels 5 and 6 would need some actual hardware hacking as I know of no old hardware with an RF modulator for those channels.

Anyway, analog broadcasts will remain legal (for those with an FCC license) for another year.  But I just thought now would be a good time to start planning.  Any ideas, suggestions, or links would be nice.  Thanks.

[BigDumbDinosaur]

In the USA, television stations have begun to advertise ("public announcement") about the fact that analog TV transmissions will end in February 2009.  That's fine, but it they are repeating the message ad nauseum.

Which got me to thinking about retro TV.  I think it would be loads of fun to broadcast analog TV.  Kind of like a pirate radio station...

And we can come visit you in the slammer when the FCC catches up with you.  <Grin>