UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum

UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum (https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/index.php)
-   Television Standards Converters, Modulators etc (https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=95)
-   -   D/D2MAC *encoders* ? (https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=151465)

Captain Jack 16th Nov 2018 5:26 pm

D/D2MAC *encoders* ?
 
Hello all,

Newbie here. So.... what happens to all the old broadcast equipment, such as PAL and MAC encoders? I have been looking for a MAC encoder for years but they best I could find was a couple of generators. Enough to revive an old decoder but not much more fun than that.

Someone has managed to write a Python script to create a MAC baseband signal and send it over to a decoder using HackRF, but it's not real time.

Any ideas?

CJ

paulsherwin 16th Nov 2018 5:32 pm

Re: D/D2MAC *encoders* ?
 
Old professional broadcast kit is mostly scrapped. It isn't much use to anybody once the technology has moved on, and the health & safety and WEEE rules make it difficult to pass it on even FOC.

llama 16th Nov 2018 5:32 pm

Re: D/D2MAC *encoders* ?
 
Hello and welcome.
I imagine they have all gone in auctions like this:

https://www.ppauctions.com/eshots/20181115/

Maybe some enthusiast has snapped up one or more.
Graham

Captain Jack 16th Nov 2018 5:35 pm

Re: D/D2MAC *encoders* ?
 
Yeah, I do follow that PPauctions but never really seen one there. It's a shame as these would be great educational equipment to play with.

I suspect if generators are still available on auctions then perhaps real encoders would be around too. Just haven't found any yet!

red16v 17th Nov 2018 5:19 pm

Re: D/D2MAC *encoders* ?
 
I worked in a major broadcasting tv centre and I haven’t seen PAL equipment since the mid 90’s. As for MAC equipment, well that would have been very specialised and like most I can only think of BSB in the UK. I would imagine most of their MAC kit would have been skipped many years ago when it was subsumed into SKY and shifted to their centre in West London from Marco Polo in Battersea.

AC/HL 17th Nov 2018 8:38 pm

Re: D/D2MAC *encoders* ?
 
It may have been used for links pre-digital?
One of our microwave radio sites had a monitor and I recall seeing a display, about 2/3 mono, with the right hand third in colour which I took to be DMAC.


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