Why when using any console

[A2600]

Why when using any console you need channel 3 why not 2 or 1 why 3 have you wondered about that??

[Raijin Z]

In Japan, I think they used to use the higher end of the VHF scale for game consoles and whatnot, like channel 12. Anyway, Atari 2600 used channels 2 or 3, and almost everything else uses 3 or 4. There's an actual channel 3 station kinda close to me, but it only barely comes in. It's in Cleveland, and I don't live as close to it as I did a few years ago. Bleah.

[MegaManFan]

.. must you put it in every forum at the same time? Dude, relax a little. Posting it one time would have been enough; as you can see it was already answered just here in the 2600 forum.

[IceCold]

I get craploads of interference when using channel 3 because of the the channel 3 in cleveland, even if I dont' have an antenna hooked up to the tv. So i always use 2(VCS) or 4(everything else)

[Ze_ro]

Since I have so much crap connected to one TV, I set everything to channel 3... it's the only channel that ALL of the systems are able to do.

 

... I still think it's stupid that there's no Channel 1...

 

--Zero

[LinkoVitch]

In Japan, I think they used to use the higher end of the VHF scale for game consoles and whatnot, like channel 12. Anyway, Atari 2600 used channels 2 or 3, and almost everything else uses 3 or 4. There's an actual channel 3 station kinda close to me, but it only barely comes in. It's in Cleveland, and I don't live as close to it as I did a few years ago. Bleah.

 

Isn't Japan/China UHF? I read about them using PAL 60 over there. I would at least think Hong Kong would be UHF (ex british doobery and all that).

 

Could Channel 1 be reserved or something? or perhaps it encrotches on something else and hence never used?

[Raijin Z]

...

 

VHF = Very High Frequency. Television channels 2 through 13

UHF = Ultra High Frequency. Television channels 14 though 87 or so.

 

Anything above or below is used for other kinds of transmission, like government radio bands, cell phones, and the like.

[deadtech]

I believe (althought I am not certain), that the fequencies that include Ch1, are reserved for Military and Government use in the US. That is why there is no commercial use of a "Ch 1".

 

-deadtech

[liquid_sky]

In 1939 RCA asked the Federal Communications Commission to designate 13 television channels, enough to deliver three networks to every part of the country without interference. Even though each TV station would eat 30 times as much spectrum as one FM channel, Sarnoff tried to force the FCC's speedy approval -- mainly by demonstrating television at the 1939 World's Fair.

 

Peeved at Sarnoff's bullying, FCC chair James Fly responded with populist fury: He believed bandwidth should deliver information and entertainment to every woodland shack before it delivered flashy TV to people who could, in 1939, afford a $600 set. Television, he announced, could ask for its bandwidth after FM radio got what it needed. And he promptly gave part of RCA's proposed Channel 1 to FM.

 

A word about the spectrum:

.

The radio spectrum is divided into frequencies, or Hertz. Very High Frequency (VHF) waves, which run from 30 megahertz (MHz) to 300 MHz, are easy to control, and go a long distance on a little power. Everybody wants a piece of VHF.

 

The FCC originally gave FM the VHF between 42 MHz and 50 MHz, divided into 40 channels. Individual stations were assigned particular frequencies. They also got power ratings, so that two stations in neighboring areas could broadcast on the same frequency without overlapping. Then, figuring that judicious allocation of spectrum would allow TV and FM to share spectrum, FCC gave television 13 channels, 6 MHz each, right on top of FM.

 

They figured wrong. Too many broadcasters wanted spectrum, and television and FM were tangling.

.

In 1948 the FCC shifted FM up the spectrum to 88 through 108, which is how your radio is numbered today. It gave the remnants of television's Channel 1 to "land mobile," a class of radio users that included dispatchers and police.

 

Television was given pieces of what remained in VHF: Channels 2, 3 and 4 reside between 54 and 72 MHz. Channels 5 and 6 live just below FM radio, at 76 to 88 MHz. (My radio tunes in Channel 6.) Channels 7 through 13 occupy 174 to 216 MHz, far above FM territory.

[Raijin Z]

Now let there never be another inquiry on the topic.

 

Case of the Radio Wrangler: CLOSED