The least Atari Friendly TV ever.

[Tec]

Thanks Dragon Stomper,

 

What makes things confusing is that the Belling Lee Connector gets called RF Connector, RCA, Coax and all sorts and then whatever I call it people assume I mean an F-type and can't understand how my TV doesn't have one.

 

Now that I have the proper name for the connector and a link it might be easier to explain myself. The only place I see F-Connectors is on Satellite boxes in the UK. My DVD player is scart only.

 

I guess in theory then, the Atari's connector is actually a Belling Lee Connector so instead of calling it the Atari RCA or RF or anything, It should now be known as IEC 61169-2 radio-frequency coaxial connector of type 9,52. Lol. :-)

 

Many thanks for this.

 

Tec.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Tec

[Tec]

Sorry to say that manually fiddling with the rf adjustment has made no difference.

 

I'll keep trying until I find a solution. Excellent game play, just no sound, only white noise.

 

I'm going to renew the RCA cable and the 9v wall wart and see if that makes any difference.

 

Tec.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Wonder if it could be the audio capacitors... the mylar ones...hmm...

[atariactionman]

Hi Tec,

I live in the UK too. My solution was to mod my 2600 all black myself. I can now play all the 2600 games on my plasma TV. I have mine connected through the phono cables video audio left audio right through a scart adapter. Looking at your connections, you could do so directly through the phono ports after modding your unit.

I have had little luck trying to connect and tune through the arial on a modern TV.

Ebay is good for buying a modding kit. I think mine was about £17. And it is so easy to do. I have had little experience soldering but managed to do this successfully myself.

I have since purchased a modded 7800 on ebay and also a modded NTSC 2600 which both work flawlessly on more modern TVs.

Just a tip, but if you love playing 2600 games, get yourself a Harmony cartridge for guaranteed endless fun, you can find most PAL conversions for games right here on Atariage. I have never looked back and have an Atari under my TV right now that I play most days.

Best of luck to you friend and happy gaming.

[atariactionman]

With regard to your TV, I think that it might be tuning out the sound. I have had this problem with my TVs. I am guessing there is actually nothing wrong with your Atari. It is just that TVs have moved on from rf and get a much more stable source from component or HDMI.

[Tec]

With regard to your TV, I think that it might be tuning out the sound. I have had this problem with my TVs. I am guessing there is actually nothing wrong with your Atari. It is just that TVs have moved on from rf and get a much more stable source from component or HDMI.

 

You could be right. You see it was working perfectly for about 5 minutes, then the white noise got louder and louder and now it's permanent. So it was working 100% for a few minutes. Plus I have taken it apart and checked everything and tried to adjust RF/Colour/Sound etc and all is working perfectly except this white noise.

 

If only there was a way of tricking my TV into thinking how it did in the first few minutes before it started tuning out the sound. My next thing is to get an old TV to test it so at least I know for sure.

[Tec]

Hi Atariactionman.

 

Thanks for your advice. Modding looks like it might be the way to go. But wouldn't it be cool if I could get this baby up and working with all original leads and games and powersupply etc. That's my ideal situation and then if not I've got many choices as suggested by fellow retro gamers. Modding, Stella etc.

 

I've a lot to think about. Right now I'm thinking about how annoying missile command is without sound. lol.

 

Tec.

[Tec]

Hi all, Just a quick update. (This is UK based to avoid confusion)

I just plugged my Atari into an analogue TV that belongs to a friend and the problem is the same as before. Excellent picture and game play, but white noise and no game sounds.

I wonder if this is something to do with plugging it in directly to the TV and even with an analogue TV it still needs an adaptor.

In the USA you guys tend to use an RCA to Coax (F-type) adaptor. In the UK our TV's have Aerial inputs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belling-Lee_connector) so I think the RCA to UK TV Coax is the equivalent pictured here. Basically it's the same input as the Atari RCA which is why the Atari plugs directly into the antenna socket, so I'm not sure why this adaptor should work but I've been reliably informed it should.

I will know soon enough because the adaptor should arrive in the post tomorrow.

Tec.

[ThomH]

Maybe I'm way off, but I think it's helpful:

• internally the Atari directly generates composite video, and audio, two signals that contain one image;
• the TV modulator takes the video and audio and combines them into a radio frequency ('RF') signal, one signal that could contain all the terrestrial channels, which is supposed to look to a TV indistinguishable from the input it'd get from a real PAL transmission received via a real aerial.

An unmodified Atari has only the modulator output — that's the thing that comes out of the closed metal box that probably has a red sticker on top. You'd plug that into the aerial socket on your analogue TV and tune to the location in the pretend radio spectrum that the Atari was pretending to broadcast on.

 

You could reasonably expect that to do something at least with any TV built prior to 2012. In 2012 the final analogue transmissions were switched off so a newer TV probably doesn't have decoding circuitry for analogue PAL. It'll still have the aerial socket because it's still expecting to receive radio transmissions, it just thinks they'll be Freeview digital.

 

If your TV has an RCA socket, it's probably expecting composite video. Unless your TV has very peculiar wiring, it's very unlikely that plugging an aerial output into an RCA socket will do anything.

 

A VCR should have worked since they all need to be able to demodulate RF in order to be able to record it, and usually offer SCART output, which carries RGB, composite, and a bunch of other options. So aerial to VCR; SCART from VCR to TV is a normal arrangement.

 

I cannot think of a reason why a TV might be able to pick up audio but then lose it, for all time. But if you're looking for a hardware modification, I'd dare imagine that just extracting the audio and sending that to external speakers while muting your TV would be the easiest thing.

[Tec]

Thanks ThomH,

 

I had tried plugging in direct to the digital TV and got sound for a few seconds and then white noise. I borrowed a VCR and tried that route into the digital TV and still got white noise. My next plan was to borrow an analogue TV (2006 model) and plug in direct and I still got white noise.

 

I haven't tried the VCR through the analogue TV though as I had to give the VCR back. I might wait until the connector comes in the post first before trying anything else.

 

If that doesn't work, I will try VCR through Analogue as you suggest and if that doesn't work then I guess the problem must be with the console, in which case at least I will know and some people will probably be able to help me with that.

 

Many thanks.

 

Tec.