Thursday, November 19, 2009

Can digital tv signal converters be made to work for TV-band radios?

I listen to TV. I don't watch it. Can my TV radios (radios that get TV channels) be made to get digital channels via the digital TV signal converters that are being sold now?





I assume not directly, but what if I purchase a couple things from Radio Shack? ...even if it's not pretty...

Can digital tv signal converters be made to work for TV-band radios?
If you can connect the RF output of the converter to the RF input of the radio, it will work. You'll have to set the radio to channel 3 or 4.


But why bother. Just use the audio outputs from the converter directly to an amplified speaker, like a computer speaker set.
Reply:I don't think it'll work.
Reply:You will have to connect it to the TV at some point in order to program it to receive your local channels. The boxes have no displays on the front to allow you to know if you are receiving a channel or if it is waiting for some other menu item to be processed. You would need the TV to assess the signal quality as well.





Basically out of the box the converter is not ready to operate until it is connected to a properly aimed antenna and the channels are scanned into its memory. This is because the FCC choose to make the digital major channel number match the analog channel number instead of just tuning in the actual channel assignment. If they had stuck with actual channels you could just tune each channel one by one and it would pick up all the signals as with an un-programmed analog TV with a channel 2 through 69 tuner. With the analog tuner (unless the manufacturer forced the set to memorize the channels) you could tune in channels 2, 6, 9, 18, 24, 35, 43, 52, 56, 65, and 68 manually by starting on 2 and seeing a lot of static and you pushed the up channel button to get to 6, then to 9, then to 18 and so on. But with the digital converter box the tuner up channel button does nothing and tunes in nothing without the channels being memorized. This is because the channels assigned for digital might be 11, 58, 39, 17, 23, 22, and so on. You see those are not in order. But complaints from some of the owners of the transmitters made the FCC put those channels in order so that the primary program on each of those channels results in the following number scheme on the digital receivers and converter boxes (as least the ones made after the change in the law): 2.1, 6.1, 9.1, 18.1 and so on. And any additional programs results in the tuner actually tuning in the following order 2.1, 2.2, 6.1, 6.2, 9.1, 9.2, 18.1, 24.1, 24.2. 24.3, 24.4, 24.5 and so on. The minor numbers after the decimal represent the programs available on each transmitter.





So you could program a converter box with a TV and move it quickly to another location (if unplugging it does not wipe its memory right away). You would want to use the audio output to feed a ampilified speaker with a RCA input such as a stereo system or use computer speakers with adapters to go from RCA male on the converter box to mini phone female stereo connector for the mini phone male connector of the computer speakers to connect to.


No comments:

Post a Comment