It's one of those things you almost gotta do with analog circuits sometimes. I've got a little robot I made using analog circuits, and while building it I would often have it propped up while soldering or tuning something in it's "brain" while checking the results.
Lol. That analogy creeps me out a little. Though that's probably because I had surgery about a month ago under local anesthetic only... 3 hours of surgery that you're awake for is just... Weird and surreal. Worse, even though you have no pain, you do feel other things... Ever thought about what having a stitch put through part of your body feels like when you take away the pain? How about skin cauterisation? Yeah... >___
@@KuraIthys That sounds interesting, actually. I wouldn't say it sounds "fun", however. Puts me in mind of when I had a root canal done, no pain at all, just weird scraping sensations, although your surgery sounds like it'd be much more of an experience to go through. How'd that cauterizing smell?
In my early childhood, all my consoles were RF. Here in Brazil, TV transmissions were made using PAL-M, and consoles could be connected to RF using channels 3 or 4. Sometimes, when my father was playing in the "game room" (just a room where the console stayed, really XD), I could watch his playthough on the living room TV, if I remember correctly, on channel 36 (or 16, don't really know). Other times, this channel would capture my neighbor playing his "Nintendinho" ("little Nintendo", what we called "famiclones" over here) as well, and when there was nothing interesting on other channels, I usually watched him being bad on video games XD. Good times!
That is a great story! I wonder what the power on your neighbor's system was. Here in the U.S., we had metal shielding shoved into the official releases of the various consoles of the era to control RF interference. I imagine that particular "Nintendinho" had RF output that was much stronger than stuff here and no shielding at all.
@@DisplacedGamers So, turns out it still works! Using my old PlayStation and a RF adapter, I can capture a signal with my UHF antenna on the roof, although the TV actually has to be on the same channel (3 in this case). Here's a video: ua-cam.com/video/QwE6c7PwJ0o/v-deo.html Maybe it's because the TVs were so close, but as shown in the video, it was the antenna capturing the signal. I also did a channel search, and I saw that channel "cable 16" briefly captured something as well on the 29" TV, so I kind of remembered something correctly XD. My living TV didn't show anything on channel 3 though, so maybe it WAS because of the proximity, but I don't really know how RF frequencies work, so I'm not sure of anything XD. But I'll make a better experiment sometime, to see how far that little RF box can transmit the signal!
In Hungary we had famiclones as well.Most consumers used it with rf.However the Terminator 2 type of famiclone (and a few others) had an antenna.Meaning that you do not have to connect the RF cable,just the the power cord.But the RF modulator was not the best type in these systems.That means that the game could appear in 6 different channels in not so good quality.Some of my friends heard in the news that an old lady could not watch TV at 6 PM because Mario is appearing at her screen.They visited her and showed to the camera that after 6Pm she could watch a fellow kid playing Super Mario Brothers.
I saw a clone Famicom before and although it also has an RF switch (similar to NES RF gray box) that looks identical to the original but inside it's different because unlike the original which the inside is transistorized the clone doesn't have transistor but instead they just connect the antenna input for the roof antenna parallel to the Famiclone RF out which means the signal from the Famiclone can go to the roof antenna and acts as a transmitter causing interference to neighbor's TV.
And the whole shifting of the frequency spectrum was done in japan after world war 2 to give japan a chance to build their own industry up post war, without relying on American imports. Making the tv incompatible with the us tv band, it ensured every tv bought in japan was made in japan. As there’s still laws on the books that allow importing practically tax free and in the showa era, totally free, its part of why games are/were region locked, to keep imported games from competing with domestic ones. Not to keep the American from getting Japanese games early. Of course since then technology and exchange rates have changed, so it’s not the big deal it once was.
@referral madness i mean it's probably because world war 1 was pretty fresh in everyone's memories and the last time they neglected such a huge population we ended up with nazi germany; working together to rebuild just works better overall for everyone and establishes good relations for trading and other alliances in the future
@John Mason "This means neither nation pose any threat to america." I think it should be pointed out that this statement has the large asterisk of Military Threat... I'm not sure that anyone would attempt an informed argument that Japan didn't have an advantage of the USA in terms of commerce/industry during the 1980s, and Japan is still enjoying a lot of economic influence gained during that time. Notably, Japan's economic advantage was influenced by the same decisions to give them their own industrial base, combined with unforseen improvements to technology vs. what was around in the 1940s. Outside of electronics... I don't think 1940s policy makers would categorize how dominant Japan is in the automobile industry as 'not a threat'. Yes, Japan can't send tanks & planes against us... but they DID play a big part in why Detroit is in such serious decline today by competing with and winning against vs American made cars.
But at least that was fair competition unlike a lot of things you could name. though it is hilarious reading that the TV and game industries were specifically set up to make sure US couldnt outcompete them, and then they turned around and tanked our auto industry despite the handicap of regionlocked steering wheels, so to speak. sometimes I think we'd be a lot better off LETTING them build a military and assigning them peacekeeping in asia.
Laws can be quite ironic. In contrast to Japan, in Australia parallel imports (aka buying stuff from overseas even when a local equivalent was available) was legally protected. Those protections have been undermined by a treaty that demanded we take on the terms of the US's DMCA, but otherwise they're still in effect. Amongst other things this made it standard for Australian DVD players to have a region unlocking code, if not just being sold region-free in the first place. (did you know the easiest way to remove region-locking from a DVD-ROM drive is often to install the firmware intended for Australia?) It also meant that mod chips were fully legal here even though they were banned or restricted in other places. Why? Because a mod chip enabled your legally protected right to play games from other regions. (that it also allowed piracy was not considered sufficient to undermine it's use.) Up until the DMCA terms were brought in, it was also explicitly legal to crack any and all copy protection system if it in any way enforced region locking. (now, ironically, the DMCA takes precedence and makes what was formerly not just permitted but a legally protected right, illegal.) Funny how laws work out, huh. Of course, Australia never had much of a local industry to begin with, so making it easier to import things was a net positive overall...
Brazil did a similar thing with its PAL-M TV color standard, It matched PAL with NTSC's 60Hz refresh. So this mean you could not simply import a TV or VCR and expect it to work here. That in time led to a industry of adapters and electronics to circumvent that limitation. Technicians became very skilled in making American and Japanese consoles to work on PAL-M. By the end 90's, most TV and VCRs were compatible with both PAL and NTSC standards. Funny thing is, they did it again on the transition to digital TV, but this time we adopted the Japanese standard, so we are not so isolated as before.
@@abhibhattacharyya3168 It has the potential to cause seizures in people with epilepsy. Although he darkened that area of the screen a lot so it's probably fine.
Growing up in PAL land, for me "channel" just meant the different inputs you could individually tune to a given RF frequency. You'd leave Channel 1 tuned into to BBC1, Channel 2 to BBC2 etc., and maybe Channel 7 would be the one you've tuned into the NES.
That's just because the UK doesn't use VHF. Here we had VHF channels 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, and Italy had channels A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, H1, and H2, half of which had identical frequencies to our VHF channels (D = 5, H = 10, H1 = 11, H2 = 12, for example). So for example, from the transmitter I was receiving from, RTV SLO 1 (first Slovenian state TV channel) was on channel 6.
VHF Channel 6 also happens to be at the very bottom of the FM radio band, and that's why a few areas still have analog television stations - They double as radio stations when used on channel 6. Oh, and another thing, fine tuning and AFC are a thing! Just because channel 3 is from 60 to 66MHz does not mean it will stay there consistently. Channels have a tendency to drift due to a variety of reasons, and initially you would have to rotate a second knob to compensate. Later sets had AFC or Automatic Frequency Control to simplify the process to turning a knob.
Yep. the audio carrier for channel 6 is 87.75 MHz, which is close enough to receive on radios tuned to 87.7FM. We have a station like that in my area. Channel drifting, a local radio station around here licensed for 89.1 did that many years ago. You could tell once it started to become distorted on 89.1 FM because it made it's way to 89.2 which no US radio can receive. It eventually made it's way to 89.3! Which was pretty annoying since there was a college radio station I liked on 89.3
My wife grew up near a channel 6, and they promoted they could be received on 87.7. The only problem was that analog TV audio bandwidth was half of FM, so it was really quiet.
@@inter_1097 yeah growing up here in Winnipeg our CBC station was like that. it was broadcast on Channel 6 in the city and it was a well known thing that you could pick up the audio on a regular radio. This was very handy.
gosh I remember the days when RF was used for just about everything and as kids having to know how to tune our consoles into a tv whenever lugging them over to friends houses to play. Then composite became more common which was a leap over rf and didn't require any tuning at all. Also my famicom does have the av mod however the store in japan that sold it to me used a 3 band 3.5mm jack for the a/v insted of those bulky rca connectors at the back and placed it where the rf output plug would normally be so as not to ruin the aesthetics of the console. Great way to do it if you really want it A/V modded.
So interesting! I very recently got a PC Engine and at first I thought it didn’t work because my usual channel 3/4 didn’t show anything. I googled and discovered the whole channel 95/96 thing and I’d been wondering why that was. I’m glad you made this great video!
I am from Europe/Germany and we yet again had different RF channels in use for consoles and home computers of that era (I believe it was 3 and 4 or 30 and 31) but that trick is still interesting to note. Thumbs up!
That makes me wonder how American channels 3 and 4, or Japanese channels 1 and 2, correspond to PAL TV's, completely disregarding differences in Hertz rates.
@@Chaos89P American 3 and 4 overlap with Western European 4, French 3 and 4, and Italian B. Japanese 1 and 2 are not part of the TV band here as they are part of the FM radio band.
Chaos89P I HAVE SAMSUNG MULTISYSTEM TV and set the Area to America and Choose programming channels from 1 to 99 and set on each frequency: S95 and S96. (91 - 97 MHz). Also S78 and S79 for Asia/West Europe area. Also I set area to China, there are no TV channels either OTA or Cable on 91-97 MHz but indicates channel as “-“ or blank.
Most VCRs and games consoles in the UK were tuned to Channel 32 until 1997 and the launch of Channel 5 (The Broadcast network, not to be confused with tuning channels). This was 559.25MHz. Not only was the gap between channels 8MHz instead of 6, but the scale also went from channel numbers 21 to 68. as far as I can tell, they were all consecutive.
Joe from Game Sack sent me here from Twitter. For him to shower so much praise on your content means a lot coming from him and he is right. These videos are awesome! Keep it up!
Looking to get a Famicom soon and actually plan on using the tips in this video to set it up for a US television since it's such a simple and clever solution. And a fun video to rewatch from time to time as well.
It never occurred to me that the RF output is literally using the radio frequency input that the TV receives the same as it would any TV channel. Guess I never thought about it before.
this guy makes AV tech much easier to understand , keep on with this vids!!, i haven’t not finished my electronic endeavors because of the grammar from the books
In the UK for some reason we didn't have pretuned channels of any sort - probably because the frequencies weren't standardised from region to region. When you got a new TV you had to tune in to the channels yourself and then 'store' it using the remote, and the same process worked for consoles. This meant you chose which channel was used for gaming, or the VCR. In my experience it was nearly always channel 0 but I saw people use 8 a lot too. It was common to ask which channel the VCR or games console was on if you were staying at someone's house.
Definitely unique and high quality content, rare for UA-cam. I get super excited when you pop up in my feed. On another note, how is it that someone so fastidious has such a filthy (hygienically) console lol.
It is gross. That was the first time I opened it up, and I just haven’t touched it since getting it from Japan sometime last year. I was embarrassed enough that I felt the need to add the “shower” line to the slime sticker.
@@DisplacedGamers It gets funnier the more I think about it. It's like you measure everything to perfection, then bring out this woefully filthy console. I'm glad you didn't scrub it up. Again gives it a uniqueness and realness that many others don't do. Love it.
I was blown away finding out you can tune into the Famicoms audio using a FM radio in the US (and EU, since we use those frequencies as well). Learned something new today!
Back in the day you could tune the audio of US channel 6 with an FM radio since the frequency is just under 88MHz and most radios could tune a little lower. You could listen to the local morning TV newscast on the way to work in your car! Here in Miami it was NBC, and it was sad when that went away due to the digital transition.
@@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY At this point I start to wonder where I could find the UHF signals coming from my NES on our radio system. Still blown away from this knowledge!
Many people nowadays tend to dis RF connection (like composite) in favor of RGB. I can actually still appreciate these legacy signals. When finely tuned, RF yields quite decent graphics. And composite out for most retro consoles (save for Genesis / Mega Drive model 1 units) are also quite good.
@B3ro1080 But those composite artifacts are (at least on NTSC) part of the resulting signal and can give more color depth by having nearby points of different color bleed into each other.
@B3ro1080 Even more than that. The "low quality" of composite can blend dithered patterns for more colors and transparency effects: ua-cam.com/video/x0weL5XDpPs/v-deo.html
I imported one and I was only able to get it to work after connecting it to a VCR that has an analog tuner that went that high. The dual NTSC analog-ATSC digital tuner in my late 2000s CRT SDTV with a built in DVD/CD player does not go that high in analog mode.
The famicom only having RF output is why I imported a Sharp Twin Famicom instead... not only does it have composite output, but it has a built-in FDS... bonus!
When i first played my famicom i played it through a vcr with the rf adapter on my lcd tv and it received fm radio signals and played them through the tv! Makes much more sense now
This reminded me of certain famiclones that uses wireless RF Transmitters. By jerryrigging an RF "amplifier" I was able to show off my gameplay to my friends and neighbors. =)
This is a pretty interesting video. I did have a TV that allowed me to "morph" (change) channels into other channels (or tune the MHz of said channel into the MHz of another said channel, as it were). For example, lets say you want 2 or 3 of the same Nickelodeon channel. There was a button that let me change a static channel into the Nickelodeon channel (which, in my area, was Channel 46 - before the switch to digital). You would simply tune the MHz of the static channel until you found the MHz of the Nickelodeon channel by pressing said button (whatever the channel was in your area - in mine, it was Channel 46). There you go - you suddenly had 2 or 3 of the same Nickelodeon channel! (You can also make all the channels "static" if you wanted to). There was a caveat to that, though - it can only do so to the channels in your area. I am also pretty sure it was a USA TV Brand too - although I do not remember what that brand was. My family gave away that TV, though. Speaking of TVs being glitchy, I had a TV that had the brand name "Megatron" that would sometimes screw up and somehow turn the Disney Channel (which was Channel 45 in our area) into the Nickelodeon channel (which was Channel 46 in our area) for brief periods of time. I mean, that TV was good enough for playing and watching TV, but it went out after years of playing video games on it. I also had a TV/VCR combo, which if I messed with just right, allowed me to watch TechTV on channel 120 (although it was a bit like the Famicom in this video with the bad capacitor - probably because TechTV wasn't supposed to be available with the normal Cox package back then)! (For reference, that TV allowed me to go up to channel 125). I also had a TV with a DVD player in it - nothing weird happened to that one, unfortunately. I have a TV called "element" (yes, the brand name is element). Nothing weird happened to that one, either - and since the transition from analog to digital has been a long time (just over 15 years) - I suspect nothing weird will happen.
MadMacss 65.7 MHz and 71.7 MHz. US RF Modulators can also work with any Soviet OIRT FM transistors and Chinese Campus FM receiver (64 - 108 MHz; Grundig G2, Tecsun PL-398 MP).
This is very interesting. I grew up in Romania and our TVs worked pretty much like car radios, in that you would tune a channel to a desired frequency and the TV would memorize it. So channel 3, 4 or 6 could be any frequency you tuned it to be on that particular TV. I always thought fixed channels were an NTSC thing, but I'm finding out other European countries also had them.
I had a few late 70s/early 80s Sony TVs that had that feature - turn the channel number on the front keypad of the TV into a frequency “shortcut.” However, I do not remember how high the channel numbers went.
It's worth noting that channels 2 through 6 were inside what used to be known as "VHF Band I", and channels 7 through 13 were inside "VHF Band III". (VHF Band II is where FM radio usually is)
channels 7 - 13 are Japan’s VHF channels 5 - 11 between US VHF 7 - 9 and Japan’s VHF 5 - 7 are 2 Mhz higher than US. VHF 10 - 13 (US) and Japan’s VHF 8 - 11 are same frequencies. Unless your NTSC TV has 2.5 MHz auto fine tunning
I'm not sure if we had the "Bob" and "Sue" designations for specific frequency ranges in Sweden. I just remember that before automatic channel discovery there was a plastic screw below each channel button on the TV that you twisted until one of the two available public service terrestrial stations appeared or the video game console or home computer of course 😊
Do you want to know why there's a big jump between VHF channel 6 and UHF channel 7? It's because that's where fm and a few other radio bands live. Instead of forcing fm radio out of the band, the fcc just had the TV frequencies go around. Something the fcc doesn't do nowadays
Yep. And the old analog cellular phones and certain other mobile radios systems were given the top of the old UHF TV band, TV's after 1982 or so ended the UHF band at Channel 69. TVs built before the 1980s could tune to UHF Channel 83. We used to hear all kinda stuff in the late '80s and early '90s using a 1970's TV that had a continuous (non "clicky") UHF tuner!
@@jamesslick4790 Yep. Heck, nowadays anything above UHF 38 has been auctioned off. I'd be curious to see if I could hear anything on those frequencies on a digital or analog TV given the correct antenna and setup since digital tvs don't let you hear static anymore
many modern tvs that still accept rf/cable input actually still have those old channels like 96 for example, for backwards compatibility with video games, since most of those consoles used a different channel. i had an old genesis came from work and the tv automatically set itself to chn whatever it was, dont remember the number, but it found it immediately ^^
Could you theoretically hook the RF output up to an RF amplifier and an antenna and then use an analog reciever to transmit the image over the air? I can't think of a practical reason to do it but it would be pretty neat.
I mean yes you could, but you would need a pretty good amp, and a tuned antenna, and you would definitely be breaking FCC regulations, and various us laws. But that never stopped anyone, did it?
Actually, about the legality, at leas in the US, you could get a ham license(15 dollars), and broadcast analog tv, with gear including antenna, amplifier, and such, on US channels 69-73 or something, for about 200, at the lowest. So if for some reason that really interests you, go for it. The keyword for finding out more is ATV, or amateur TV.
@@benjammin2020 I am a licensed amateur operator. Any broadcasting using an amateur license is strictly prohibited. You could only do that if you were communicating with another Ham
@@mkfort Yeah. Broadcast is the wrong word. What I meant to say was that there are certain amateur bands that line up with analog tv which can be used to transmit analog tv signals.
I remember using Famicom and tuned in to channel 3 using those rf switchbox thing that is included which kinda couple the signal to the antenna and your neighbor can listen to your Famicom. Then comes the clones that also broadcast its video and audio through your antenna. Not a clear picture though but neighbors can see your game play. Also it makes am radio mad, buzzing sound all over the band.
actually, friend of my did have gray brick nintendo we used to play a ton. they also had portable travel tv and for whatever reason their parents decided to try it out to see if it still worked. they tuned around till they found RF antenna signal of our nintendo session, from the next room, picture, sound and everything! apparently the television itself acted as radio transmitter and where just strong enough (and probably directed) to be picked up by annother television with antenna close by.
You know what's funny? When I was a kid I experienced a "let's play" on my very own CRT TV. At that time that wasn't a thing at all so you may be wondering how. Well, after watching this video I guess I got an Idea how. I was messing around with my tv channels and the auto finder thingy would add some channels that had only static to them. One day I was surfing through these and in one of them I caught bomberman. Like, somebody was playing bomberman and I was able to see their game on my screen. The quality was awful, it was black and white and with barely any sound. Some time later I found out my neighbor was the one playing so I would watch him play from time to time. My theory is that, back in the day we used to have adapters for the NES or whatever. You would plug both your NES and your TV antenna to that thing so you just had to turn on your NES and go to channel 3 and that was it. I bet the device was faulty or something and the signal from the NES would loop back through the antenna and be broadcasted somehow. It's really funny to think that my neighbor was unknowingly broadcasting his game for me to watch. Sadly one day he just stopped playing. Or maybe he got a better device I dunno. If only I knew how that worked.
The NES (and SNES, and Genesis) did come with RF adapters that connected to the same sort of port on a TV that an antenna would, and it would allow you to set it to channel 3 or 4 in the US; AFAIK, the adapter itself might have been broadcasting gameplay without help from your neighbor's antenna, if it were faulty enough. You probably didn't pick up enough of the chrominance carrier for your TV to decode a color signal, so it fell back to greyscale, but a partial audio carrier could still be decoded.
You can pretty easily do a no drill composite mod on these by using a phono style jack for both the audio and video output and putting the jack where the RF plug used to be. Presto, done, easy peasy lemon squeezy.
When I first saw this video, I was confused, because the US has never allocated any frequencies above Channel 83 for broadcasting: It actually deleted 70-83 from the bandplan a few months before the Famicom was released; after a couple more deletions following the transition to digital broadcasting, the top physical channel is now 36, although PSIP systems allow a digital broadcast station to claim to be at any channel from 1 through 99. It was strange to learn that the analogue cable frequencies didn't go up monotonically like that, and in particular that 95 and 96 were inside the FM band; another oddity is that analogue cable channels 7-13 go *after* 14-22, and that the list of analogue cable channels stops at 158, instead of going to the hundreds of channels that I remember hearing about even before digital cable (maybe that was a satellite-only thing). Another oddity that I read about while looking up broadcast frequency plans is that Japanese analogue broadcast channels 7 and 8 overlap.
I did not know you could do that but, if that's the cool thing to do all the rf only consoles should have this to. The only thing I did with my rf only consoles was switch the cable for a better signal and less loss. With the case of the original famicom I use a shielded coax cable paired with a simple Male rca to female coax. If you have comcast I'm sure the cable they use is more then enough and it comes in quite strong.
They’re not just US frequencies, technically. Canada, Mexico, and a lot of the Caribbean use them, too. There was a Channel 1, once, but it was dropped. It was too close to two-way radio frequencies.
Not sure if you'll read this but there is ONE reason why you'd want to keep using an OG Famicom via the RF output. The VRC6 and VRC7 cartridges from Konami actually mixes the audio on the RF module. It sounds completely wrong on an the New (AV) Famicom or AV modded Famicom. Big difference if you want to keep using original hardware/cartridges. The everdrives actually compensated for that so you can play them on either AV famicoms.
Huh, I guess a junk Famicom I got on ebay in 2000 may have worked after all. I tried 2 on my television and VCR, but it didn't work, and I had no idea at the time why, so I threw it out since it was also yellow- which I now know wasn't smoke residue like I thought, but UV light and heat changing its color.
And then there is Europe: Using PAL meant that basically no Japanese or American system works over here. More modern TVs with PAL analoge inputs can receive NTSC signals (typically TVs from the 90s or later) but generally can't decode the colors unless they use an ADC to convert the analoge signal into a digital one, in which case they can switch between the different color Encodings
@B3ro1080 Guess what... an LCD uses an ADC to convert the signal. I was talking about CRTs mostly, which mostly take in the signal and do pure analog conversion on signal
Is there ever a chance of tuning any NTSC-U or NTSC-J to a PAL TV via RF in a similar fashion? From what I read over the years, no, but this video renews my hope somewhat. I know about RGB and NTSC composite on PAL TVs and all that, but I specifically would like to play on RF sometimes, because that's what I grew up with, but at 60Hz. I'm looking into importing a CRT from back home if not, but it would be nice if there was a way. Update: Imported a 1970s Trinitron from Japan (KV-1300), got a voltage transformer, it survived the trip and I've been basking in RF nostalgia ever since with the Famicom, and run NES versions via the Everdrive when I want it.
@@nxx99 Yeah, I know they're separate video standards. However, all PAL TVs with RGB SCART accept NTSC, as RGB doesn't conform to color standards, and most PAL "modern" CRTs (90s and 2000s) accept true NTSC (3.58) and convert it to NTSC 4.43, at 60Hz. On those sets, it is also possible to tune in NTSC RF by using an RF tuner such as the Sony TU-1041U, I've done it by now. NTSC RF to PAL RF input, no. However, I did see a video of a guy that tuned in his Nintendo Color TV-Game to this PAL TV via RF, and he did so by adjusting the pots. The image wasn't great, but I was surprised there was image at all. To me it doesn't matter personally anymore, as I got a Japanese and an American RF-only set to satisfy my RF needs.
Love the picture on those old Toshiba Blackstripes. Even today, channel numbers have become irreverent thanks to ATSC broadcasting and "virtual" PSIP channel assignments. Many broadcast channels have long since abandoned their old RF channel number for something else.
Later TVs had adjustable channels where the frequency associated with the channel could be set by turning a very small analog knob with a small screwdriver, similar to what is being done with the Famicom in the video. In this way you could leave the Famicom alone and tune in to it with the TV.
yeah I had a VCR like that back in the mid 80s. It was handy because once the cable company started offering channels beyond channel 13 the ONLY way I could tune them in without having to buy or rent a cable converter was to use those knobs to manually reprogram one of the buttons for one of the channels that I didn't watch (the channel in French for instance), and use that channel slot/button to tune in one of the new channels above Channel 13 that I did want :-)
LOL that is so freaking cool about the FM radio being able to be tuned to your Famicom! Do you need anything special to do this? Like installing an antennae in your Famicom or something?
Well I never knew that. In the UK you physically tuned the channels or had to subscribe to a cable/satellite service which came with a dedicated pre tuned decoder
In Saudi Arabia, TVs also have PAL, SECAM and NTSC analog TV tuners. Also works with Japanese and RF modulators. TVs sold in Saudi Arabia are multisystem (unlike UK and Europe), NTSC-M, PAL-B/G, PAL-I, PAL-D/K, SECAM-B/G, SECAM-D/K, NTSC 4.43 (Middle Eastern VHS), AUTO. There is no SECAM-L on Saudi bought TVs.
So maybe already pointed out, but that jump between channels 6 and 7 is because the FM radio bands are between them. And lower channels were easier to tune in, but more likely to have strange looking artifacts, due to the way RF works.
I will never use the information in this video yet I still find it extremely fun to watch and informative. Keep it up!
*g a m e s a c k*
@ADEBISI ADEBISI hell yeah well said
S A C C
Do you know any chodes?
420th like
Your adjustment at the end is like one of those neurosurgeries where the surgeon leaves the patient conscious while poking around in their brain.
Lol
It's one of those things you almost gotta do with analog circuits sometimes. I've got a little robot I made using analog circuits, and while building it I would often have it propped up while soldering or tuning something in it's "brain" while checking the results.
Lol. That analogy creeps me out a little.
Though that's probably because I had surgery about a month ago under local anesthetic only...
3 hours of surgery that you're awake for is just... Weird and surreal.
Worse, even though you have no pain, you do feel other things...
Ever thought about what having a stitch put through part of your body feels like when you take away the pain?
How about skin cauterisation?
Yeah... >___
@@KuraIthys That sounds interesting, actually. I wouldn't say it sounds "fun", however. Puts me in mind of when I had a root canal done, no pain at all, just weird scraping sensations, although your surgery sounds like it'd be much more of an experience to go through. How'd that cauterizing smell?
Is this legal to do?
In my early childhood, all my consoles were RF. Here in Brazil, TV transmissions were made using PAL-M, and consoles could be connected to RF using channels 3 or 4. Sometimes, when my father was playing in the "game room" (just a room where the console stayed, really XD), I could watch his playthough on the living room TV, if I remember correctly, on channel 36 (or 16, don't really know). Other times, this channel would capture my neighbor playing his "Nintendinho" ("little Nintendo", what we called "famiclones" over here) as well, and when there was nothing interesting on other channels, I usually watched him being bad on video games XD. Good times!
That is a great story! I wonder what the power on your neighbor's system was. Here in the U.S., we had metal shielding shoved into the official releases of the various consoles of the era to control RF interference. I imagine that particular "Nintendinho" had RF output that was much stronger than stuff here and no shielding at all.
@@DisplacedGamers So, turns out it still works! Using my old PlayStation and a RF adapter, I can capture a signal with my UHF antenna on the roof, although the TV actually has to be on the same channel (3 in this case). Here's a video:
ua-cam.com/video/QwE6c7PwJ0o/v-deo.html
Maybe it's because the TVs were so close, but as shown in the video, it was the antenna capturing the signal. I also did a channel search, and I saw that channel "cable 16" briefly captured something as well on the 29" TV, so I kind of remembered something correctly XD.
My living TV didn't show anything on channel 3 though, so maybe it WAS because of the proximity, but I don't really know how RF frequencies work, so I'm not sure of anything XD. But I'll make a better experiment sometime, to see how far that little RF box can transmit the signal!
Thanks for sharing this!
In Hungary we had famiclones as well.Most consumers used it with rf.However the Terminator 2 type of famiclone (and a few others) had an antenna.Meaning that you do not have to connect the RF cable,just the the power cord.But the RF modulator was not the best type in these systems.That means that the game could appear in 6 different channels in not so good quality.Some of my friends heard in the news that an old lady could not watch TV at 6 PM because Mario is appearing at her screen.They visited her and showed to the camera that after 6Pm she could watch a fellow kid playing Super Mario Brothers.
I saw a clone Famicom before and although it also has an RF switch (similar to NES RF gray box) that looks identical to the original but inside it's different because unlike the original which the inside is transistorized the clone doesn't have transistor but instead they just connect the antenna input for the roof antenna parallel to the Famiclone RF out which means the signal from the Famiclone can go to the roof antenna and acts as a transmitter causing interference to neighbor's TV.
And the whole shifting of the frequency spectrum was done in japan after world war 2 to give japan a chance to build their own industry up post war, without relying on American imports. Making the tv incompatible with the us tv band, it ensured every tv bought in japan was made in japan. As there’s still laws on the books that allow importing practically tax free and in the showa era, totally free, its part of why games are/were region locked, to keep imported games from competing with domestic ones. Not to keep the American from getting Japanese games early. Of course since then technology and exchange rates have changed, so it’s not the big deal it once was.
@referral madness i mean it's probably because world war 1 was pretty fresh in everyone's memories and the last time they neglected such a huge population we ended up with nazi germany; working together to rebuild just works better overall for everyone and establishes good relations for trading and other alliances in the future
@John Mason "This means neither nation pose any threat to america." I think it should be pointed out that this statement has the large asterisk of Military Threat... I'm not sure that anyone would attempt an informed argument that Japan didn't have an advantage of the USA in terms of commerce/industry during the 1980s, and Japan is still enjoying a lot of economic influence gained during that time. Notably, Japan's economic advantage was influenced by the same decisions to give them their own industrial base, combined with unforseen improvements to technology vs. what was around in the 1940s.
Outside of electronics... I don't think 1940s policy makers would categorize how dominant Japan is in the automobile industry as 'not a threat'. Yes, Japan can't send tanks & planes against us... but they DID play a big part in why Detroit is in such serious decline today by competing with and winning against vs American made cars.
But at least that was fair competition unlike a lot of things you could name. though it is hilarious reading that the TV and game industries were specifically set up to make sure US couldnt outcompete them, and then they turned around and tanked our auto industry despite the handicap of regionlocked steering wheels, so to speak.
sometimes I think we'd be a lot better off LETTING them build a military and assigning them peacekeeping in asia.
Laws can be quite ironic.
In contrast to Japan, in Australia parallel imports (aka buying stuff from overseas even when a local equivalent was available) was legally protected.
Those protections have been undermined by a treaty that demanded we take on the terms of the US's DMCA, but otherwise they're still in effect.
Amongst other things this made it standard for Australian DVD players to have a region unlocking code, if not just being sold region-free in the first place. (did you know the easiest way to remove region-locking from a DVD-ROM drive is often to install the firmware intended for Australia?)
It also meant that mod chips were fully legal here even though they were banned or restricted in other places.
Why? Because a mod chip enabled your legally protected right to play games from other regions. (that it also allowed piracy was not considered sufficient to undermine it's use.)
Up until the DMCA terms were brought in, it was also explicitly legal to crack any and all copy protection system if it in any way enforced region locking.
(now, ironically, the DMCA takes precedence and makes what was formerly not just permitted but a legally protected right, illegal.)
Funny how laws work out, huh.
Of course, Australia never had much of a local industry to begin with, so making it easier to import things was a net positive overall...
Brazil did a similar thing with its PAL-M TV color standard, It matched PAL with NTSC's 60Hz refresh. So this mean you could not simply import a TV or VCR and expect it to work here. That in time led to a industry of adapters and electronics to circumvent that limitation. Technicians became very skilled in making American and Japanese consoles to work on PAL-M.
By the end 90's, most TV and VCRs were compatible with both PAL and NTSC standards.
Funny thing is, they did it again on the transition to digital TV, but this time we adopted the Japanese standard, so we are not so isolated as before.
I'd definitely listen to that radio station. 🎧
K-F-M-C Famicom Radio!
I think there's actually a chiptune radio out there, I'll see if I can find it!
Also US CABLE BOX with RF output on Soviet Russian OIRT FM BANDS (65.7 and 71.7 FM).
Video: "DON'T STARE AT THIS"
Me: *stares directly at it*
Yea, I did too. Why'd he say to not stare at it?
@@ReshiLuna Could damage your eyes if they're sensitive
@@ReshiLuna If you stare at it, you'll die.
Actually, it's a vain attempt to direct your attention to the lower right corner.
Same
@@KidPrarchord95 lol troll
Wait a second: when you say don't stare at this, what do you AGGHGHGHAGHHGHGHGH
I don't understand... Is it supposed to give you a headache or something? Or is it an in joke I'm not getting
@@abhibhattacharyya3168 It has the potential to cause seizures in people with epilepsy. Although he darkened that area of the screen a lot so it's probably fine.
That’s right, you’ll turn into Mr. Krabs.
this was an absolutely amazing video and doesnt have enough views
i forgotten for a second that you are a retro fan and i was wondering why are you here ngl
Woah, I didn't expect to see you here! Nice to see another retro fan :)
I wish my Radio blasted Journey to Silus
*You deserve more subscribers! Your content is awesome!*
Growing up in PAL land, for me "channel" just meant the different inputs you could individually tune to a given RF frequency. You'd leave Channel 1 tuned into to BBC1, Channel 2 to BBC2 etc., and maybe Channel 7 would be the one you've tuned into the NES.
Let's be honest it was probably a Master System...or a ZX/C64/Amstrad
@@bootmii98 you'd think... I must've been the only kid in town to actually have an NES.
Depending on the town/transmitter, it could be anything from 21 to about 60.
I wonder which was a better approach? I remember the channels were sometimes PITAs to get just right.
That's just because the UK doesn't use VHF. Here we had VHF channels 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, and Italy had channels A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, H1, and H2, half of which had identical frequencies to our VHF channels (D = 5, H = 10, H1 = 11, H2 = 12, for example). So for example, from the transmitter I was receiving from, RTV SLO 1 (first Slovenian state TV channel) was on channel 6.
VHF Channel 6 also happens to be at the very bottom of the FM radio band, and that's why a few areas still have analog television stations - They double as radio stations when used on channel 6.
Oh, and another thing, fine tuning and AFC are a thing! Just because channel 3 is from 60 to 66MHz does not mean it will stay there consistently. Channels have a tendency to drift due to a variety of reasons, and initially you would have to rotate a second knob to compensate. Later sets had AFC or Automatic Frequency Control to simplify the process to turning a knob.
Yep. the audio carrier for channel 6 is 87.75 MHz, which is close enough to receive on radios tuned to 87.7FM. We have a station like that in my area.
Channel drifting, a local radio station around here licensed for 89.1 did that many years ago. You could tell once it started to become distorted on 89.1 FM because it made it's way to 89.2 which no US radio can receive. It eventually made it's way to 89.3! Which was pretty annoying since there was a college radio station I liked on 89.3
My wife grew up near a channel 6, and they promoted they could be received on 87.7. The only problem was that analog TV audio bandwidth was half of FM, so it was really quiet.
I remember being a kid and having my mind blown when I discovered I could pick up channel 6 on the radio.
@@inter_1097 yeah growing up here in Winnipeg our CBC station was like that. it was broadcast on Channel 6 in the city and it was a well known thing that you could pick up the audio on a regular radio. This was very handy.
AIO inc. IRC CATV CHANNEL 6 (85.25 - 89.75 MHz), same as PAL-D Chinese TV frequency channel 5 (85.25 - 91.75 MHz).
I love this channel. It's so educational, even if it's not particularly applicable to my life. Thanks for sharing!
gosh I remember the days when RF was used for just about everything and as kids having to know how to tune our consoles into a tv whenever lugging them over to friends houses to play. Then composite became more common which was a leap over rf and didn't require any tuning at all. Also my famicom does have the av mod however the store in japan that sold it to me used a 3 band 3.5mm jack for the a/v insted of those bulky rca connectors at the back and placed it where the rf output plug would normally be so as not to ruin the aesthetics of the console. Great way to do it if you really want it A/V modded.
I had a Famicom here in the US and used the VCR trick!!! I didn't know why certain channels worked... Wow, this is some really cool information here.
No need VCR if your TV has Cable Tv tuner.
So interesting! I very recently got a PC Engine and at first I thought it didn’t work because my usual channel 3/4 didn’t show anything. I googled and discovered the whole channel 95/96 thing and I’d been wondering why that was. I’m glad you made this great video!
I am from Europe/Germany and we yet again had different RF channels in use for consoles and home computers of that era (I believe it was 3 and 4 or 30 and 31) but that trick is still interesting to note.
Thumbs up!
I'm also from Germany!
That makes me wonder how American channels 3 and 4, or Japanese channels 1 and 2, correspond to PAL TV's, completely disregarding differences in Hertz rates.
@@Chaos89P American 3 and 4 overlap with Western European 4, French 3 and 4, and Italian B. Japanese 1 and 2 are not part of the TV band here as they are part of the FM radio band.
On wireless channels, USA and Canada use channels 1, 6, and 11.
Chaos89P I HAVE SAMSUNG MULTISYSTEM TV and set the Area to America and Choose programming channels from 1 to 99 and set on each frequency: S95 and S96. (91 - 97 MHz). Also S78 and S79 for Asia/West Europe area. Also I set area to China, there are no TV channels either OTA or Cable on 91-97 MHz but indicates channel as “-“ or blank.
Most VCRs and games consoles in the UK were tuned to Channel 32 until 1997 and the launch of Channel 5 (The Broadcast network, not to be confused with tuning channels). This was 559.25MHz. Not only was the gap between channels 8MHz instead of 6, but the scale also went from channel numbers 21 to 68. as far as I can tell, they were all consecutive.
Joe from Game Sack sent me here from Twitter. For him to shower so much praise on your content means a lot coming from him and he is right. These videos are awesome! Keep it up!
Displaced Gamer is turning out to be one of favorite channels! As a retro gamer and electronics tech this is right up my alley :)
I stared at it, now I have a cat.
Wat?
@@samanthakuznik5007 Meow
Dragon Slayer Ornstein Did your cat come up to you or did you just magically spawn a cat? Lol
Thanks for taking 10 minutes of your time to make this video for us.
aw man I wanted to stare at that, I love glitchy tv stuff
Looking to get a Famicom soon and actually plan on using the tips in this video to set it up for a US television since it's such a simple and clever solution. And a fun video to rewatch from time to time as well.
Damn, you gave me so much information. All of the forums I read just left me with more confusion. Thank you!
It never occurred to me that the RF output is literally using the radio frequency input that the TV receives the same as it would any TV channel. Guess I never thought about it before.
this guy makes AV tech much easier to understand , keep on with this vids!!, i haven’t not finished my electronic endeavors because of the grammar from the books
Dude, this YT channel is so cool, I'm motivated to learn more about all this stuff and try to create things/games
Amazing quality! Subscribed
Thank you very much for the information, it has really helped me a lot.
Greetings from Chile.
You just gained a new subscriber! Love the production!
In the UK for some reason we didn't have pretuned channels of any sort - probably because the frequencies weren't standardised from region to region. When you got a new TV you had to tune in to the channels yourself and then 'store' it using the remote, and the same process worked for consoles. This meant you chose which channel was used for gaming, or the VCR. In my experience it was nearly always channel 0 but I saw people use 8 a lot too. It was common to ask which channel the VCR or games console was on if you were staying at someone's house.
UHF 21 - 69. PAL-I only for UK TVs and Euro PAL SECAM TVs, that doesn’t have NTSC-M but only SECAM-L, PAL-B/G, I, D/K, SECAM-B/G, DK, K1 only.
Definitely unique and high quality content, rare for UA-cam. I get super excited when you pop up in my feed. On another note, how is it that someone so fastidious has such a filthy (hygienically) console lol.
It is gross. That was the first time I opened it up, and I just haven’t touched it since getting it from Japan sometime last year.
I was embarrassed enough that I felt the need to add the “shower” line to the slime sticker.
@@DisplacedGamers It gets funnier the more I think about it. It's like you measure everything to perfection, then bring out this woefully filthy console. I'm glad you didn't scrub it up. Again gives it a uniqueness and realness that many others don't do. Love it.
I was blown away finding out you can tune into the Famicoms audio using a FM radio in the US (and EU, since we use those frequencies as well). Learned something new today!
Back in the day you could tune the audio of US channel 6 with an FM radio since the frequency is just under 88MHz and most radios could tune a little lower. You could listen to the local morning TV newscast on the way to work in your car! Here in Miami it was NBC, and it was sad when that went away due to the digital transition.
LilyBloom Also ATSC box with RF output on channel 3 and 4, used for modulating on Russian sold OIRT FM Receivers.
@@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY At this point I start to wonder where I could find the UHF signals coming from my NES on our radio system. Still blown away from this knowledge!
Many people nowadays tend to dis RF connection (like composite) in favor of RGB. I can actually still appreciate these legacy signals. When finely tuned, RF yields quite decent graphics. And composite out for most retro consoles (save for Genesis / Mega Drive model 1 units) are also quite good.
rf can be good if you have an decent crt tv but in my youth i had a garbage phillips vcrtv
@B3ro1080 But those composite artifacts are (at least on NTSC) part of the resulting signal and can give more color depth by having nearby points of different color bleed into each other.
@B3ro1080 Even more than that. The "low quality" of composite can blend dithered patterns for more colors and transparency effects: ua-cam.com/video/x0weL5XDpPs/v-deo.html
I didn't know about this at all.. My tv had 8 channels, individually tuned manually. I can virtually put display my nes on any channel.
I imported one and I was only able to get it to work after connecting it to a VCR that has an analog tuner that went that high. The dual NTSC analog-ATSC digital tuner in my late 2000s CRT SDTV with a built in DVD/CD player does not go that high in analog mode.
I had no idea that you could use your radio for audio. If that was available for the NES growing up it would have been tubular!
The famicom only having RF output is why I imported a Sharp Twin Famicom instead... not only does it have composite output, but it has a built-in FDS... bonus!
Excellent work here. This was fantastic.
*We used Channel 3 and 4 back when I 3 to play NES*
*Makes sense*
Using a VCR as an intermediate between the TV and another device is a workaround I remember from back in the day.
Journey to Silius FM Station, nice
Thank you Sir, awesome! Very informative! I am looking at purchasing a Sharp FC Twin and a Famicom with the Disk drive this makes things much easier.
When i first played my famicom i played it through a vcr with the rf adapter on my lcd tv and it received fm radio signals and played them through the tv! Makes much more sense now
I like how you snuck Journey to Silius in there.
This reminded me of certain famiclones that uses wireless RF Transmitters. By jerryrigging an RF "amplifier" I was able to show off my gameplay to my friends and neighbors. =)
This is a pretty interesting video. I did have a TV that allowed me to "morph" (change) channels into other channels (or tune the MHz of said channel into the MHz of another said channel, as it were). For example, lets say you want 2 or 3 of the same Nickelodeon channel. There was a button that let me change a static channel into the Nickelodeon channel (which, in my area, was Channel 46 - before the switch to digital). You would simply tune the MHz of the static channel until you found the MHz of the Nickelodeon channel by pressing said button (whatever the channel was in your area - in mine, it was Channel 46). There you go - you suddenly had 2 or 3 of the same Nickelodeon channel! (You can also make all the channels "static" if you wanted to). There was a caveat to that, though - it can only do so to the channels in your area. I am also pretty sure it was a USA TV Brand too - although I do not remember what that brand was. My family gave away that TV, though.
Speaking of TVs being glitchy, I had a TV that had the brand name "Megatron" that would sometimes screw up and somehow turn the Disney Channel (which was Channel 45 in our area) into the Nickelodeon channel (which was Channel 46 in our area) for brief periods of time. I mean, that TV was good enough for playing and watching TV, but it went out after years of playing video games on it.
I also had a TV/VCR combo, which if I messed with just right, allowed me to watch TechTV on channel 120 (although it was a bit like the Famicom in this video with the bad capacitor - probably because TechTV wasn't supposed to be available with the normal Cox package back then)! (For reference, that TV allowed me to go up to channel 125).
I also had a TV with a DVD player in it - nothing weird happened to that one, unfortunately.
I have a TV called "element" (yes, the brand name is element). Nothing weird happened to that one, either - and since the transition from analog to digital has been a long time (just over 15 years) - I suspect nothing weird will happen.
Can you imagine going up to 96? pff
*Comment made by the channel 3 gang*
(?
Do you really have to credit the source of the comment?
My cable company did that for several channels that were on 95/96.
Channel 4 for life.
MadMacss 65.7 MHz and 71.7 MHz. US RF Modulators can also work with any Soviet OIRT FM transistors and Chinese Campus FM receiver (64 - 108 MHz; Grundig G2, Tecsun PL-398 MP).
MadMacss channel 3 and 4 are also overlapped Soviet Russian OIRT FM frequencies (65 - 74 MHz).
This is very interesting. I grew up in Romania and our TVs worked pretty much like car radios, in that you would tune a channel to a desired frequency and the TV would memorize it. So channel 3, 4 or 6 could be any frequency you tuned it to be on that particular TV. I always thought fixed channels were an NTSC thing, but I'm finding out other European countries also had them.
I had a few late 70s/early 80s Sony TVs that had that feature - turn the channel number on the front keypad of the TV into a frequency “shortcut.” However, I do not remember how high the channel numbers went.
СНДИИЄLЅ 3 ДИD 4 ОVЄЯLДРРЅ ЅФVЇЄТ / ЯЦЅЅЇДИ ӨІЯТ ҒМ ВАИD (65 - 74 МНz)
(sndiiyeldz 3 did 4 ovyeyaldrrdz sfvyiyet / yatdzdzidi oeiyat gm vaid (65 - 74 MNz)
That was so cool to see!
Like number 900! Thank you for this bit of retro awesome!
Excellent video my friend.
this video makes me want more a Famicom now! great video!
SYSTEM D.P. AND RANDAR!!!!!!!!! I MUST HAVE!!!!!!!!! Seriously, good taste in games man!
"DO NOT STARE AT THIS" Why not? You're not my real dad.
RF to composite converter box. Only a few bucks on eBay.
"Do not stare at this" maan that text got in the way of all the fun...
It's worth noting that channels 2 through 6 were inside what used to be known as "VHF Band I", and channels 7 through 13 were inside "VHF Band III". (VHF Band II is where FM radio usually is)
channels 7 - 13 are Japan’s VHF channels 5 - 11 between US VHF 7 - 9 and Japan’s VHF 5 - 7 are 2 Mhz higher than US. VHF 10 - 13 (US) and Japan’s VHF 8 - 11 are same frequencies. Unless your NTSC TV has 2.5 MHz auto fine tunning
(5:14) "I looked at the -trap- screen, Ray."
I'm not sure if we had the "Bob" and "Sue" designations for specific frequency ranges in Sweden. I just remember that before automatic channel discovery there was a plastic screw below each channel button on the TV that you twisted until one of the two available public service terrestrial stations appeared or the video game console or home computer of course 😊
This is so beautiful, man
Do you want to know why there's a big jump between VHF channel 6 and UHF channel 7? It's because that's where fm and a few other radio bands live. Instead of forcing fm radio out of the band, the fcc just had the TV frequencies go around. Something the fcc doesn't do nowadays
Yep. And the old analog cellular phones and certain other mobile radios systems were given the top of the old UHF TV band, TV's after 1982 or so ended the UHF band at Channel 69. TVs built before the 1980s could tune to UHF Channel 83. We used to hear all kinda stuff in the late '80s and early '90s using a 1970's TV that had a continuous (non "clicky") UHF tuner!
@@jamesslick4790 Yep. Heck, nowadays anything above UHF 38 has been auctioned off. I'd be curious to see if I could hear anything on those frequencies on a digital or analog TV given the correct antenna and setup since digital tvs don't let you hear static anymore
many modern tvs that still accept rf/cable input actually still have those old channels like 96 for example, for backwards compatibility with video games, since most of those consoles used a different channel. i had an old genesis came from work and the tv automatically set itself to chn whatever it was, dont remember the number, but it found it immediately ^^
Could you theoretically hook the RF output up to an RF amplifier and an antenna and then use an analog reciever to transmit the image over the air? I can't think of a practical reason to do it but it would be pretty neat.
I mean yes you could, but you would need a pretty good amp, and a tuned antenna, and you would definitely be breaking FCC regulations, and various us laws. But that never stopped anyone, did it?
That's all kinds of illegal and a horrible idea
Actually, about the legality, at leas in the US, you could get a ham license(15 dollars), and broadcast analog tv, with gear including antenna, amplifier, and such, on US channels 69-73 or something, for about 200, at the lowest. So if for some reason that really interests you, go for it. The keyword for finding out more is ATV, or amateur TV.
@@benjammin2020 I am a licensed amateur operator. Any broadcasting using an amateur license is strictly prohibited. You could only do that if you were communicating with another Ham
@@mkfort Yeah. Broadcast is the wrong word. What I meant to say was that there are certain amateur bands that line up with analog tv which can be used to transmit analog tv signals.
I remember using Famicom and tuned in to channel 3 using those rf switchbox thing that is included which kinda couple the signal to the antenna and your neighbor can listen to your Famicom. Then comes the clones that also broadcast its video and audio through your antenna. Not a clear picture though but neighbors can see your game play. Also it makes am radio mad, buzzing sound all over the band.
You can modulate channel 3 to any Soviet OIRT RADIO RECEIVERS and tune in to 65.75 MHz. 65.7 FM are also tuneable on Tecsun Radios.
actually, friend of my did have gray brick nintendo we used to play a ton. they also had portable travel tv and for whatever reason their parents decided to try it out to see if it still worked. they tuned around till they found RF antenna signal of our nintendo session, from the next room, picture, sound and everything!
apparently the television itself acted as radio transmitter and where just strong enough (and probably directed) to be picked up by annother television with antenna close by.
You know what's funny?
When I was a kid I experienced a "let's play" on my very own CRT TV. At that time that wasn't a thing at all so you may be wondering how.
Well, after watching this video I guess I got an Idea how. I was messing around with my tv channels and the auto finder thingy would add some channels that had only static to them. One day I was surfing through these and in one of them I caught bomberman. Like, somebody was playing bomberman and I was able to see their game on my screen.
The quality was awful, it was black and white and with barely any sound. Some time later I found out my neighbor was the one playing so I would watch him play from time to time.
My theory is that, back in the day we used to have adapters for the NES or whatever. You would plug both your NES and your TV antenna to that thing so you just had to turn on your NES and go to channel 3 and that was it.
I bet the device was faulty or something and the signal from the NES would loop back through the antenna and be broadcasted somehow.
It's really funny to think that my neighbor was unknowingly broadcasting his game for me to watch.
Sadly one day he just stopped playing. Or maybe he got a better device I dunno.
If only I knew how that worked.
The NES (and SNES, and Genesis) did come with RF adapters that connected to the same sort of port on a TV that an antenna would, and it would allow you to set it to channel 3 or 4 in the US; AFAIK, the adapter itself might have been broadcasting gameplay without help from your neighbor's antenna, if it were faulty enough. You probably didn't pick up enough of the chrominance carrier for your TV to decode a color signal, so it fell back to greyscale, but a partial audio carrier could still be decoded.
5:18 The URGE to stare...XD
3:04,
Thats friggn' COOL!
You also have to check to see if your TV has an Add Channel option to put in channels 95 and 96. The (S)NES RF Switch does work with the Famicom.
You can pretty easily do a no drill composite mod on these by using a phono style jack for both the audio and video output and putting the jack where the RF plug used to be. Presto, done, easy peasy lemon squeezy.
When I first saw this video, I was confused, because the US has never allocated any frequencies above Channel 83 for broadcasting: It actually deleted 70-83 from the bandplan a few months before the Famicom was released; after a couple more deletions following the transition to digital broadcasting, the top physical channel is now 36, although PSIP systems allow a digital broadcast station to claim to be at any channel from 1 through 99.
It was strange to learn that the analogue cable frequencies didn't go up monotonically like that, and in particular that 95 and 96 were inside the FM band; another oddity is that analogue cable channels 7-13 go *after* 14-22, and that the list of analogue cable channels stops at 158, instead of going to the hundreds of channels that I remember hearing about even before digital cable (maybe that was a satellite-only thing).
Another oddity that I read about while looking up broadcast frequency plans is that Japanese analogue broadcast channels 7 and 8 overlap.
I have a bootleg fam in that also used A/V cables.
I did not know you could do that but, if that's the cool thing to do all the rf only consoles should have this to. The only thing I did with my rf only consoles was switch the cable for a better signal and less loss. With the case of the original famicom I use a shielded coax cable paired with a simple Male rca to female coax. If you have comcast I'm sure the cable they use is more then enough and it comes in quite strong.
They’re not just US frequencies, technically. Canada, Mexico, and a lot of the Caribbean use them, too. There was a Channel 1, once, but it was dropped. It was too close to two-way radio frequencies.
My channel one on the old black and white was uhf
Not sure if you'll read this but there is ONE reason why you'd want to keep using an OG Famicom via the RF output. The VRC6 and VRC7 cartridges from Konami actually mixes the audio on the RF module. It sounds completely wrong on an the New (AV) Famicom or AV modded Famicom. Big difference if you want to keep using original hardware/cartridges. The everdrives actually compensated for that so you can play them on either AV famicoms.
Huh, I guess a junk Famicom I got on ebay in 2000 may have worked after all. I tried 2 on my television and VCR, but it didn't work, and I had no idea at the time why, so I threw it out since it was also yellow- which I now know wasn't smoke residue like I thought, but UV light and heat changing its color.
And then there is Europe:
Using PAL meant that basically no Japanese or American system works over here. More modern TVs with PAL analoge inputs can receive NTSC signals (typically TVs from the 90s or later) but generally can't decode the colors unless they use an ADC to convert the analoge signal into a digital one, in which case they can switch between the different color Encodings
@B3ro1080 Guess what... an LCD uses an ADC to convert the signal. I was talking about CRTs mostly, which mostly take in the signal and do pure analog conversion on signal
Rad! New subscriber here. Thanks for this.
You got it!
Excellent!
3:16 That just blew my mind.
There is still that dark horizontal line that keeps going down the screen but still quite impressive
Is there ever a chance of tuning any NTSC-U or NTSC-J to a PAL TV via RF in a similar fashion? From what I read over the years, no, but this video renews my hope somewhat. I know about RGB and NTSC composite on PAL TVs and all that, but I specifically would like to play on RF sometimes, because that's what I grew up with, but at 60Hz. I'm looking into importing a CRT from back home if not, but it would be nice if there was a way.
Update: Imported a 1970s Trinitron from Japan (KV-1300), got a voltage transformer, it survived the trip and I've been basking in RF nostalgia ever since with the Famicom, and run NES versions via the Everdrive when I want it.
No, as PAL is different from NTSC. They're incompatible and separate video standards.
@@nxx99 Yeah, I know they're separate video standards. However, all PAL TVs with RGB SCART accept NTSC, as RGB doesn't conform to color standards, and most PAL "modern" CRTs (90s and 2000s) accept true NTSC (3.58) and convert it to NTSC 4.43, at 60Hz. On those sets, it is also possible to tune in NTSC RF by using an RF tuner such as the Sony TU-1041U, I've done it by now.
NTSC RF to PAL RF input, no. However, I did see a video of a guy that tuned in his Nintendo Color TV-Game to this PAL TV via RF, and he did so by adjusting the pots. The image wasn't great, but I was surprised there was image at all. To me it doesn't matter personally anymore, as I got a Japanese and an American RF-only set to satisfy my RF needs.
Now I finally know why I have to set to channel 95, some 30 years later.
i did not know that , i just av modded mine anyway but great info, thanks for sharing
I really loved this explanation, especially about the frequency jump from US Channels 6 to 7. Very interesting to watch! :3
Love the picture on those old Toshiba Blackstripes. Even today, channel numbers have become irreverent thanks to ATSC broadcasting and "virtual" PSIP channel assignments. Many broadcast channels have long since abandoned their old RF channel number for something else.
HEY I WAS TRYING TO STARE AT THAT!!
Later TVs had adjustable channels where the frequency associated with the channel could be set by turning a very small analog knob with a small screwdriver, similar to what is being done with the Famicom in the video. In this way you could leave the Famicom alone and tune in to it with the TV.
yeah I had a VCR like that back in the mid 80s. It was handy because once the cable company started offering channels beyond channel 13 the ONLY way I could tune them in without having to buy or rent a cable converter was to use those knobs to manually reprogram one of the buttons for one of the channels that I didn't watch (the channel in French for instance), and use that channel slot/button to tune in one of the new channels above Channel 13 that I did want :-)
LOL that is so freaking cool about the FM radio being able to be tuned to your Famicom! Do you need anything special to do this? Like installing an antennae in your Famicom or something?
in mexico we had those on the '90s we use channel 3 or 4 i love famicom somany memories
СНДИИЄLЅ 3 ДИD 4 ОVЄЯLДРРЅ ЅФVЇЄТ / ЯЦЅЅЇДИ ӨІЯТ ҒМ ВАИD (65 - 74 МНz)
(sndiiyeldz 3 did 4 ovyeyaldrrdz sfvyiyet / yatdzdzidi oeiyat gm vaid (65 - 74 MNz)
I imported a Japanese vcr for mine and they can tune in 1 and 2 and then I run it out by av.
stpworld If NTSC TV with analog Cable TV ready, you can tune in to channel 95 or 96.
stpworld M69 RF modulator can be used either Japan or US TVs. If modulator set to CATV 23, then set your Japanese TVs to channel 12.
That's quite interesting!
3:20,
Are you sure this is from "Nintendo World Cup"?
Edit:
Nevermind, it's from "Journey To Silius" I thought it sounded like SunSoft...
For a clean setup, replace the RF plug on your Famicom with just the video (yellow) plug and just use a radio for audio!
Well I never knew that. In the UK you physically tuned the channels or had to subscribe to a cable/satellite service which came with a dedicated pre tuned decoder
In Saudi Arabia, TVs also have PAL, SECAM and NTSC analog TV tuners. Also works with Japanese and RF modulators. TVs sold in Saudi Arabia are multisystem (unlike UK and Europe), NTSC-M, PAL-B/G, PAL-I, PAL-D/K, SECAM-B/G, SECAM-D/K, NTSC 4.43 (Middle Eastern VHS), AUTO. There is no SECAM-L on Saudi bought TVs.
5:29 I stared at the screen; do I get a prize?
Oh nooooooo! I just didn't want you to hurt your eyes.
@@DisplacedGamers well I'll be damned, I learned something in a UA-cam video comments section
So maybe already pointed out, but that jump between channels 6 and 7 is because the FM radio bands are between them.
And lower channels were easier to tune in, but more likely to have strange looking artifacts, due to the way RF works.
Channel 6 is 87.75, channel 7 is 179.75
yoo, did any other consoles have that radio feature that's awesome