Pirate TV

[FreddyE1977]

I came across a story online which claimed that there was a growing fad of pirate TV station
operators putting out analog signals on vacant channels now that the DTV switch has occurred.

Supposedly they are getting their hands on transmitting equipment that is being scrapped by LPTV
operators (or building homebrew sets if they are capable).

Is this really the case? I have not heard of any pirate TV stations since some college kids were
screwing around transmitting porn when I lived in Michigan 20 yrs. ago. And since nobody scans
the analog TV dial any more, who would ever see them, and why would you bother?

 

[landtuna]

I haven't heard of pirate TV stations but I'll hazard a guess on why someone would do this. For the same reason people climb mountains "because they're there". Just to prove you could do it or perhaps to make a cultural or political point to one's social circle. Setting up an analog station would have a very limited potential audience however because I'm guessing the primary demo would be people under 40 (and perhaps 30) and they would be among the first to convert to digital sets.

But maybe, since I still have analog sets in my house, I'll unplug the converter one day and scan the analog channels to see if anyone is out there. Maybe the extra-terrestrials haven't converted to digital yet. ;D

 

[Markxxx]

They could air public domain episodes of "I Married Joan," and "Ozzie And Harriett" and when the ratings come in and they're higher than the MyNetwork TV affiliate all heck will break loose ;D

 

[TexasTom]

The thing is...who is going to see an analog pirate TV broadcast? With only a few LPTV stations left transmitting in analog, OTA viewers are not generally expecting to find anything that isn't digital. And with digital, you don't tend to find new stations unless you periodically rescan.

That said, if someone wants to do analog pirate TV, it would be very easy to do -- analog RF modulators are cheap, and just hooking the output up to an amplifier and antenna will get you some sort of range. At a bare minimum, even hooking the channel 3 output of a VCR to a pair of rabbit ears will produce a signal that radiates a few feet. I tried that one back in the eighties.

 

[visaman]

The thing is...who is going to see an analog pirate TV broadcast? .

The same type of people who still listen to Shortwave Radio (David Letterman)?

Seriously though, There are avid DXers out there still.

 

[anotherguyTN]

That said, if someone wants to do analog pirate TV, it would be very easy to do -- analog RF modulators are cheap, and just hooking the output up to an amplifier and antenna will get you some sort of range. At a bare minimum, even hooking the channel 3 output of a VCR to a pair of rabbit ears will produce a signal that radiates a few feet. I tried that one back in the eighties.

I didn't know it was illegal at the time, but I did that with the outdoor antenna at my parents house. I was able to transmit the tape on the VCR to all the other TVs in the house. I don't know how much further it transmitted, but I only did it a few times, and when I found out it was definitely illegal I stopped.

 

[tripinva]

The thing is...who is going to see an analog pirate TV broadcast? .

The same type of people who still listen to Shortwave Radio (David Letterman)?

Seriously though, There are avid DXers out there still.

Shortwave has a much larger coverage area than an analog pirate TV broadcast would have.

- Trip

 

[w9wi]

I came across a story online which claimed that there was a growing fad of pirate TV station
operators putting out analog signals on vacant channels now that the DTV switch has occurred.

I haven't heard of a pirate TV station in decades, except for Star Ray TV in Toronto and some sheriff's department out west somewhere who was broadcasting the local cable access channel OTA. I'm sure it's been done but not on large scale.

I would suggest a number of reasons:
- As cited by others, a majority of viewers have either cable or satellite; unless they can somehow convince the cable system to carry them, most viewers won't know they're there.
- Virtually every viewer who uses OTA has converted to digital. There's a bit of analog transmitting gear kicking around (and you can build your own) but digital transmitting gear is pretty scarce in the used market.*
- A 50-watt ERP FM radio pirate can cover a small town or a significant area of a large city. A 50-watt ERP TV pirate might, maybe, cover a subdivision.
- It takes a LOT more work to produce a TV program than it does to put some favorite MP3s on shuffle.

anotherguy & TexasTom: at my last job someone's wife inadvertently did that. He called our (CBS) station to complain the NBC station was interfering with us. Given that he was 30 miles away, I sure couldn't think of anything channel 15 could be doing wrong that would interfere with us on channel 3! I asked whether he might have recently installed a VCR & hooked it up wrong -- he insisted he didn't have a VCR.

Turns out his wife bought one without telling him, and *she* hooked it up wrong... with the output hooked in parallel with their antenna... and set it to record channel 15...


*I've been looking, with an aim towards getting into legal amateur DTV with my ham license.

 

[Darth_vader]

I'm doing that currently, with an old VCR that had its tape transport mecanism ripped out years ago (I used to use it just as an NTSC tuner for a video monitor) and a mid-1980s Archer RF amplifier. I then feed the line input of the VCR from my sat box. A neighbour in a unit on the other side of the complex says she can receive it, very scratchy but viewable, on her Toshiba plasma rig.

I think I may be the only one in the Northwest currently providing Al Jazeera for over-the-air viewers.....

@w9--
As functions are added and the old gear gets outmoded, a niche market for used ATSC gear might emerge. Just give it a few more years. I imagine Belkin or somebody else might even make a consumer ATSC Part-15 transmitter available before the end of the decade, if somebody hasn't already.

 

[w9wi]

@w9--
As functions are added and the old gear gets outmoded, a niche market for used ATSC gear might emerge. Just give it a few more years. I imagine Belkin or somebody else might even make a consumer ATSC Part-15 transmitter available before the end of the decade, if somebody hasn't already.

Absolutely, it's only a matter of time until the gear is out there.

To be honest I wouldn't be so sure about the consumer ATSC transmitter. DTVs without analog composite inputs are relatively rare, especially DTVs of any reasonable size. DTVs also, at least at this point, universally also tune analog signals -- so an analog modulator will still do the trick. I don't think there's nearly the market for an ATSC modulator (especially at the higher price that would be necessary) there was for analog units.

That said, Belkin has surprised me before!

 

[Ultimajock]

...there have been literally thousands of neighborhood/town TV pirates across Italy for the last 30 years, so why not here?...

 

[azumanga]

...there have been literally thousands of neighborhood/town TV pirates across Italy for the last 30 years, so why not here?...

Apparently, Italian broadcasting regulators have practically turned a blind eye to local pirate stations, as long as they don't interfere with other stations. This is in contrast to stations in the US, where the FCC would squash at any cost.

 

[FreddyE1977]

That said, if someone wants to do analog pirate TV, it would be very easy to do -- analog RF modulators are cheap, and just hooking the output up to an amplifier and antenna will get you some sort of range. At a bare minimum, even hooking the channel 3 output of a VCR to a pair of rabbit ears will produce a signal that radiates a few feet. I tried that one back in the eighties.

I had a cable converter box that went kaflooie once and was transmitting the lower and VHF channels over about
a 25 ft. radius. Kinda liked it as I could watch in my bedroom without a second hookup.

 

[FreddyE1977]

I haven't heard of pirate TV stations but I'll hazard a guess on why someone would do this. For the same reason people climb mountains "because they're there". Just to prove you could do it or perhaps to make a cultural or political point to one's social circle. Setting up an analog station would have a very limited potential audience however because I'm guessing the primary demo would be people under 40 (and perhaps 30) and they would be among the first to convert to digital sets.

But maybe, since I still have analog sets in my house, I'll unplug the converter one day and scan the analog channels to see if anyone is out there. Maybe the extra-terrestrials haven't converted to digital yet. ;D

Supposedly a group of young people here in Pittsburgh were going to take to the airwaves a few minutes after the June '09 analog shutdown with a live music program to celebrate "the end of television". Supposedly they printed a bunch of handbills telling people to tune to Channel 2 (apparently being unaware that KDKA-TV was going to remain on the air in nightlight mode for awhile) Supposedly the broadcast actually took place on Channel 5.

I did not witness it as I did not know at the time that it was occurring. And since this was probably out east by the University campi I doubt the signal would have made it to my house anyway.

 

[JeeperOne]

Anyone remember the clown in Chicago who tried to jam the WTTW 11 signal with his own? That only happened a few years ago

Cheers

 

[Ultimajock]

Anyone remember the clown in Chicago who tried to jam the WTTW 11 signal with his own? That only happened a few years ago

...24 years is only "a few"?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_intrusion_incident ...

 

[TexasTom]

As functions are added and the old gear gets outmoded, a niche market for used ATSC gear might emerge. Just give it a few more years. I imagine Belkin or somebody else might even make a consumer ATSC Part-15 transmitter available before the end of the decade, if somebody hasn't already.

There will likely never be consumer ATSC Part 15 gear available -- because there has never, ever been Part 15 gear available to transmit on the broadcast TV band. While the FCC has allowed very low power unlicensed Part 15 operation on the AM and FM broadcast radio bands, such operation has always been prohibited on TV bands. All of the ultra-low powered analog TV modulators that have been available were for wired distribution only (connecting devices directly to televisions, master antenna systems, and cable TV) -- it has always been illegal to hook such devices up to a transmitting antenna.

Now, there will never be any ATSC modulators for the cable TV business, since cable uses a different modulation scheme (QAM). That leaves the potential market for ATSC modulators as being licensed broadcasters plus master antenna systems or in-home wired distribution. The broadcast gear is pretty unaffordable for home use, and that master antenna/in-home distribution market is small enough that it may not be cost effective to offer anything.

Bottom line is that I'm not holding my breath waiting for any sort of low-cost, ultra low power ATSC modulators to become available. And if they do, using one to broadcast using an antenna would never be allowed under Part 15. Of course the legality of it would, by definition, not be a deterrent to would be TV pirates.

 

[LibertyNT]

Actually thats not true. At One Time There was Part 15 on TV. Channel 14 to be exact. but I imagine the local pervs brought that to an end.
In fact, there were several Part 15 TV transmitters made back in the day.

 

[WPPCProductions]

I have a uhf prebuilt Xmitter.which I use like that vcr rabbit product.it worked ok.Like said using an old rf mudulator out of a vcr with a little kick will work.I've seen plans online to make one.Anyway Our friends at Ramsey Electronics probably invent an atsc dtv transmitter like those infamous BA1404 FM kits.Speaking of Ramsey I did get their TV-6 TV transmitter It works ok ,but no power.Now as I just found out with my new mini cable tv boxes with the ch3 and 4 output do send out MTS stereo sound out of the mudulator in the little box.So I see they are making rf modulators with MTS stereo now.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Anyone remember the clown in Chicago who tried to jam the WTTW 11 signal with his own? That only happened a few years ago

Cheers

That guy hijacked the microwave link and took over two licensed full-power TV stations.
And nearly 25 yrs. later they still have absolutely no idea who he was.

Could not happen today as the links are all digital and encrypted.