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Watch TV from the 90s and earlier

(my90stv.com)
653 points thunderbong | 1 comments | 28 Jul 23 12:46 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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coin ◴[28 Jul 23 15:37 UTC] No.36908469[source]▶
Why the static between changing channels. Analog TVs would change channels instantly.
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boomboomsubban ◴[28 Jul 23 15:54 UTC] No.36908729[source]▶
In my experience, it was fairly common for there to be (as an example) a channel 3 and a channel 5 but no 4, so if you were flipping through the channels on certain TV's you'd see static.
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SoftTalker ◴[28 Jul 23 16:14 UTC] No.36909096[source]▶
Yes, in broadcast (over the air) TV, only every other channel was allocated in a given area. That's why most devices that connected to a TV (computers, VCRs, etc.) could use either channel 3 or channel 4 because one of the two would be unused.
replies(1): >>36912285 #
ThinkingGuy ◴[28 Jul 23 19:46 UTC] No.36912285{3}[source]▶
There were some exceptions, though, as the VHF TV channels aren't all contiguous. In North America, there's a gap between channels 4 and 5; and channels 6 and 7 are separated by the bands for several radio services (FM, aviation, amateur, and marine).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/VHF_Usag...

replies(1): >>36912476 #
SoftTalker ◴[28 Jul 23 19:59 UTC] No.36912476{4}[source]▶
Hm, didn't know that. But I still remember the channels we had when I was a kid:

2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 13, and UHF 30.

I also remember that depending on the radio, you could sometimes pick up the audio for I think VHF channel 6 at the low end of the FM dial.

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1. ansible ◴[28 Jul 23 20:21 UTC] No.36912746{5}[source]▶
Yep, that was a thing with NTSC-M analog channel 6, which had the audio at 87.75MHz, just below the nominal bottom of the FM range at 88.1MHz. I used to listen to the 10 o'clock news that way.