When I swtich to antenna with a coax connected I receive some cable channels.

[wpxt]

Okay so what I'm saying is when I was younger I would click on menu with the tv remote and mess with the channels. Anyways one time i switched from cable to antenna to see if I could receive anything. 2 to 13 was still local channels but 14 and above were cable channels out of place like Cartoon Network, Disney, ABC Family, Food Network and other channels above 65? Can anyone explain this phenomenon to me?

 

[cd637299]

It could be cable egress (like overload) from either other TV's in your house or that of a neighbor's cable TV.

I don't have cable, but sometimes I see a faint B&W fuzzy cable signal from neighbors on the low channels 2 to 5. Messes with my DXing, but it shows that my outdoor antenna is working!

BTW the pictures aren't really watchable

I guess that your local cable is running signals on UHF channels 65 and up. Digital TV today (OTA) does not go above channel 51.

cd

 

[Gregg]

Same with my old cable system. I think they simply arranged their cable channels in different ways coming out of the headquaters. But for marketing reasons your cable box put them in the order you were familiar with.

For instance, in NYC we have a local All-News channel called NY1. When I dialed it up on my cable box, it came in at Channel 1. When you turned on the cable box, it always started at NY1. That makes sense since the cable company, Time-Warner, owns NY1 and wants people to see what's on NY1 as soon as they turn on their TV. But when I plugged the cable directly in my TV, NY1 came up on Channel 10. And the station that would normally be seen on Channel 10 was also someplace else.

I suppose Time-Warner had a deal with the United Nations to carry their in-house TV channel to various embassies in Manhattan. But you couldn't find that channel when you had the cable box working. So I suppose it wasn't for the general public. There was also a channel with several meters on it, which I suppose was for cable installers. Again, you couldn't see it when the cable box was working.

 

[w9wi]

You were watching the same frequencies, but they're numbered differently depending on whether you're in "cable" or "air" mode.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_cable_television_frequencies (scroll to "North America cable television frequencies")

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_broadcast_television_frequencies (scroll to "VHF Bands" and "UHF Bands")

===

Imagine, for example, that Food Network was on channel 75 on cable. The first link shows that the Video Carrier for channel 75 is 529.25MHz.

Now, look at the other link. Note that the Video Carrier for channel 24 is 531.25Mhz. That's not the same as the carrier for cable, but it's close enough -- select channel 24 in "air" mode and your TV will automatically fine-tune itself to the Food Network signal.

If you compare the two charts you'll find plenty of other frequencies that map to one channel on cable & a different channel on "air".

It worked the other way around too: if WCGV-TV was broadcasting over the air on channel 24, and you connected an antenna to your TV and selected "cable" mode & tuned channel 75, you'd see WCGV.

Note also, that for channels below 14, the Video Carrier frequencies are the same in both tables. That's why 2 through 13 had the same stations either way.

===

For the most part this won't work anymore. The modulation method used for over-the-air analog TV was the same as that used for analog cable, but the modulation methods for digital TV are different.

 

[wpxt]

Thank you w9wi for clearing that up. The wikipedia article really helped. I never knew cable channels 65 to 94 were on the UHF frequency.