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Old 31st Aug 2018, 6:36 pm   #1
Richard_FM
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Default Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Recently I bought an RF modular off eBay which can be programmed to several systems (B/G D/K & I) & has the usual CCIR VHF (Ch 2-12) & UHF (21-69) channels.

Also it has a set of channels labelled simply as "S" covering 119.25MHz (S03) to 168.25MHz (S10) & 231.25MHz (S11) to 196.25MHz (S38). The spacings are 7 MHz.

I looked through my World Radio & TV Handbook & several websites trying to look for any country that used those channel allocations but have drawn a blank. I'm assuming they were for analogue cable & not for any broadcast system.

If anyone has any better ideas feel free to chip in.
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Old 31st Aug 2018, 6:44 pm   #2
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Those sound like the 'hyperband' channels which were often used (and may still be) on analogue cable TV systems, which of course don't need to stick to the established TV broadcast bands. I remember them in use in on the Telekom cable TV system in Germany in the early 1990s, and the VCR I used as a tuner then was able to receive them.

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Old 31st Aug 2018, 11:37 pm   #3
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Thanks for the reply, I found the Philips TV I recently bought will tune into the S channels.

On mainland Europe a lot of cable systems were simply fed from a socket on the wall & a "cable ready" TV could tune in without the need of a set top box.

I'm not sure if these systems were just free to air or a subscription charged somehow.
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Old 31st Aug 2018, 11:42 pm   #4
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

I have got one in my box of odd bits.
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Old 1st Sep 2018, 1:35 am   #5
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Strictly speaking these were superband channels - used on cable systems - filling the gaps between band 1 and band 3 and then between top of band 3 and 300MHz - system B (ie 7MHz) channels applied as noted

Hyperband filled the gap between 300MHz and 470MHz using system G channel width ie 8MHz

Hope this clarifies


J
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Old 1st Sep 2018, 9:48 am   #6
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

The tuning menu of our last CRT TV , a Ferguson (Thomson) included a CC band , which I assumed was for cable TV. I don't recall the frequencies, and the manual didn't mention it.
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Old 1st Sep 2018, 12:29 pm   #7
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Hi,
this is very useful info, thank you.
I think a b and w Philips portable I have has several bands, although it is only 625 line. it has a band select knob that moves the tuning scale behind the tuning pointer.
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Old 1st Sep 2018, 2:11 pm   #8
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard_FM View Post
On mainland Europe a lot of cable systems were simply fed from a socket on the wall & a "cable ready" TV could tune in without the need of a set top box.

I'm not sure if these systems were just free to air or a subscription charged somehow.
Yes, that's how it worked when I lived in Germany. I was in student halls of residence but the cable TV signal was just there in the socket on the wall, and TVs and VCRs tuned straight in to it. It was noticeable that older models got a smaller choice of stations: they didn't tune these 'S' channels. FM radio was on there as well.

I think it must have been included in the rent, though technically we had to have a TV licence. There was certainly no separate charge for the cable service.

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Old 1st Sep 2018, 6:11 pm   #9
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

These channel were used in different countries in different ways, the odd one out being Belgium which was the only country to have extra channels between Bands I & II.

These were followed by channels between Bands II & III. These continued above Band III, extending to 300MHz, which was the limit on CATV amplifiers at the time these networks started.

The channel sequence was like this:

Ch. Limits (MHz) Vision Sound
E2 47.00 - 54.00 48.25 53.75
E3 54.00 - 61.00 55.25 60.75
E4 61.00 - 68.00 62.25 67.75

S1 69.00 - 76.00 70.25 75.75
S2 76.00 - 83.00 77.25 82.75
S3 83.00 - 90.00 84.25 89.75

M2 111.00 - 118.00 112.25 117.75
M3 118.00 - 125.00 119.25 124.75
M4 125.00 - 132.00 126.25 131.75
M5 132.00 - 139.00 133.25 138.75
M6 139.00 - 146.00 140.25 145.75
M7 146.00 - 153.00 147.25 152.75
M8 153.00 - 160.00 154.25 159.75
M9 160.00 - 167.00 161.25 166.75
M10 167.00 - 174.00 168.25 173.75

E5 174.00 - 181.00 175.25 180.75
E6 181.00 - 188.00 182.25 187.75
E7 188.00 - 195.00 189.25 194.75
E8 195.00 - 202.00 196.25 201.75
E9 202.00 - 209.00 203.25 208.75
E10 209.00 - 216.00 210.25 215.75
E11 216.00 - 223.00 217.25 222.75
E12 223.00 - 230.00 224.25 229.75

U1 230.00 - 237.00 231.25 236.75
U2 237.00 - 244.00 238.25 243.75
U3 244.00 - 251.00 245.25 250.75
U4 251.00 - 258.00 252.25 257.75
U5 258.00 - 265.00 259.25 264.75
U6 265.00 - 272.00 266.25 271.75
U7 272.00 - 279.00 273.25 278.75
U8 279.00 - 286.00 288.25 285.75
U9 286.00 - 293.00 287.25 292.75
U10 293.00 - 300.00 294.25 299.75

Other European countries only added extra channels starting above Band II.

Originally, set-top boxes were supplied to cover these new channels and convert them to a free broadcast channel but manufacturers quickly designed multi-band tuners for new sets and the set-top boxes quickly disappeared.

Demand for more channels increased as amplifier designs improved, allowing the introduction of the Hyperband, as J says. New tuners were designed for new sets which now had continuous coverage from 47 - 862MHz

Belgium still retained their three extra channels but, in the resat of Europe, the situation was like this (note the 2MHz gap between 300 & 300MHz, so that the top of the Hyperband dovetails into the bottom of Band IV):

Ch. Limits (MHz) Vision Sound
E2 47.00 - 54.00 48.25 53.75
E3 54.00 - 61.00 55.25 60.75
E4 61.00 - 68.00 62.25 67.75

E5 174.00 - 181.00 175.25 180.75
E6 181.00 - 188.00 182.25 187.75
E7 188.00 - 195.00 189.25 194.75
E8 195.00 - 202.00 196.25 201.75
E9 202.00 - 209.00 203.25 208.75
E10 209.00 - 216.00 210.25 215.75
E11 216.00 - 223.00 217.25 222.75
E12 223.00 - 230.00 224.25 229.75

S2 111.00 - 118.00 112.25 117.75
S3 118.00 - 125.00 119.25 124.75
S4 125.00 - 132.00 126.25 131.75
S5 132.00 - 139.00 133.25 138.75
S6 139.00 - 146.00 140.25 145.75
S7 146.00 - 153.00 147.25 152.75
S8 153.00 - 160.00 154.25 159.75
S9 160.00 - 167.00 161.25 166.75
S10 167.00 - 174.00 168.25 173.75
S11 230.00 - 237.00 231.25 236.75
S12 237.00 - 244.00 238.25 243.75
S13 244.00 - 251.00 245.25 250.75
S14 251.00 - 258.00 252.25 257.75
S15 258.00 - 265.00 259.25 264.75
S16 265.00 - 272.00 266.25 271.75
S17 272.00 - 279.00 273.25 278.75
S18 279.00 - 286.00 280.25 285.75
S19 286.00 - 293.00 287.25 292.75
S20 293.00 - 300.00 294.25 299.75

S21 302.00 - 310.00 303.25 308.75
S22 310.00 - 318.00 311.25 316.75
S23 318.00 - 326.00 319.25 324.75
S24 326.00 - 334.00 325.25 332.75
S25 334.00 - 342.00 335.25 340.75
S26 342.00 - 350.00 343.25 348.75
S27 350.00 - 358.00 351.25 356.75
S28 358.00 - 366.00 359.25 364.75
S29 366.00 - 374.00 367.25 372.75
S30 374.00 - 382.00 375.25 380.75
S31 382.00 - 390.00 383.25 398.75
S32 390.00 - 398.00 391.25 396.75
S33 398.00 - 406.00 399.25 404.75
S34 406.00 - 414.00 407.25 412.75
S35 414.00 - 422.00 415.25 420.75
S36 422.00 - 430.00 423.25 438.75
S37 430.00 - 438.00 431.25 436.75
S38 438.00 - 446.00 439.25 445.75
S39 446.00 - 454.00 447.25 453.75
S40 454.00 - 462.00 455.25 461.75
S41 462.00 - 470.00 463.25 469.75

E21 470.00 - 478.25 471.25 477.25

... and so on up to channel E68
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Old 1st Sep 2018, 8:12 pm   #10
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Thanks for all the feedback, obviously these gap filling frequencies would only be used for cable as they had already been allocated for airband broadcasts IIRC.
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Old 1st Sep 2018, 8:26 pm   #11
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

I remember some of the up market Grundig colour sets in the 1980s that were fitted with multiband tuners covering these extra channels.

Alan.
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Old 2nd Sep 2018, 10:55 am   #12
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

You will find most modern flat screen TVs (except Panasonic) will tune all these channels in analogue mode.

Superband and hyperband were also (still are for digital) used by UK cable companies but the channel allocations were different. In the UK vision frequencies were exact multiples of 8, eg 120, 128, 136, etc up to 472. These were known as HRC channels (can't remember what it stood for). But by doing this all channels could be locked together using harmonics of a master 8MHz oscillator. Any spurious beats between carriers on the system then appear exactly under another carrier and so are less visible.
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Old 2nd Sep 2018, 5:36 pm   #13
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Broadcast and European cable channels are IRC - Incrementally Related Channels whilst UK cable channels are HRC - Harmonically related channels.

From memory, this allows amplifiers to have a 3dB higher output level.
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Old 2nd Sep 2018, 7:33 pm   #14
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Quote:
Originally Posted by winston_1 View Post
You will find most modern flat screen TVs (except Panasonic) will tune all these channels in analogue mode.
Yes the 2 of my sets I've tested will tune into them.

Oddly they will tune the modulator set to system B channel 2 (with sound seperation set to 6MHz), but both seem to be programmed to call this Channel 1. I know why system M (NTSC) is missing channel 1, but haven found why CCIR system B is missing it.
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Old 2nd Sep 2018, 9:11 pm   #15
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Courtesy of Alan Pemberton whose useful work has been archived here:

https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/Pembers/...ystems.html#E1

E1

The explanation from the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) is as follows:

The 41-68MHz Band I television allocation was agreed at the 1947 ITU (International Telecommunications Union) conference in 1947, and the first European channel plan was agreed in 1952 at the ITU conference in Stockholm. System B was at that time used by about a dozen stations and only three 7MHz-wide channels could be accommodated within the 27MHz allocation, so they were defined as 47-54MHz, 54-61MHz and 61-68MHz at the top of the band, leaving a 6MHz space empty at the low frequency end. This chunk of spectrum was not officially deleted from the plan until the 1961 Stockholm ITU conference, but in the meantime setmakers and others in the industry seem to have expected something to appear there and had named the other channels E2 - E4.

However, a few transmitters were known to use either 'E1', 40-47MHz, or 'E1A', 41-48MHz, during the 'forties or 'fifties, including ones in Bremen, West Germany, and at the Philips factory in Eindhoven in The Netherlands.
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Old 2nd Sep 2018, 9:52 pm   #16
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Although the above is correct I don't think a modern set would look for E1.
48.25 is very close to Irish channel A. On system I the set would assume it is Irish A and thus label it as 1 as sets never seem to label channels by letters for the Irish or Italian channels.
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Old 2nd Sep 2018, 11:49 pm   #17
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Thanks for the feedback once again.

New Zealand's VHF channel allocation is almost as the same as system B, but the channels are numbered 1 lower for the same frequency, apart from their Channel 1, which is 45.25 MHz rather than 48.25 for E2.

Some later analogue sets had the frequencies expressed as MHz so they could be sold to a wider market. My old Philips had this & a chart of channel numbers in the handbook.

My LG Digital set has the option of either MHz or channel numbers for analogue tuning.
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Old 3rd Sep 2018, 10:57 am   #18
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

If you follow the link to Pembers Ponderings iin Post #15 and scroll up, you will find the channel allocations for the entire world, listed by country. For some reason, the top 4 channels in the European cable hyperband are missing from the list. Also note that there is no S1 (Europe) or M1 (Belgium) suggesting that these additional cable channels were planned before Band II was extended to 108MHz in Europe.
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Old 3rd Sep 2018, 9:34 pm   #19
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

To add a little to the channel “E1” saga, the ITU Stockholm 1952 (ST52) allocation documentation did not include channel numbers for any of the TV systems, just the channel frequency details. It looks as if it had been left to individual country administrations to assign channel numbers, and this was in fact the case for the UK, France and Italy (and later on, quite a few other countries outside of Europe).

On the other hand, Kerkhof and Werner (K&W) did refer to the 625-line (later System B) 7 MHz channels by the Roman numerals I through X, noting that I was a “short” 6 MHz channel, 41-47 MHz, then unusable, but possibly usable in the future if extended down to 40 MHz.

Whether the Roman numeral channel numbering was formal or informal is unknown, but it did point the way to the future numbering, including “E1”.

K&W published in 1952, but probably their writings represented the situation in the first half of 1951. For example, the French 819-line channelling plan shown is the original based upon 14 MHz spacing, whereas ST52 was based upon the definitive tête bêche plan, with 13.15 MHz spacing. Also, there was no mention of the Swiss proposal to use 5-pack rather than 6-pack sets of equalizing pules, which came out of the CCIR Geneva 1951 meeting.

K&W made no mention of the Russian 625-line system (which was the original with that line count), or its channelling plan. That omission may have been due to the cold war politics of the era. Also omitted was what became System N, in use in Argentina from 1951 September as far as I know. In this case, remoteness may have been a reason for its non-mention, although the first transmitter using this standard was a 1949 experimental installation in Torino, Italy.

Incidentally, ST52 included one assignment (Tours) for what became French channel F3. This was never used as planned, and was effectively made unusable when the standard receiver IF (28.05 MHz VIF) was adopted circa 1955. So F3 was another “ghost” channel.

I have attached scans of the pertinent K&W pages.

The ITU Stockholm 1961 (ST61) allocation documentation did not include any channel numbers for the VHF TV transmitters. But it did include the channel numbers for the UHF TV transmitters, one imagines because these were part of the uniform plan. This documentation also included the first use of System letters, A through L, for most of the various TV transmission standards then extant. (M, N and K’ were added a little later.) And the letters were shown for both the VHF and UHF cases.

All of this does leave the question - under whose aegis were the European E-series VHF channel numbers developed and promulgated. Perhaps the EBU? Some more research is indicated.


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Old 19th Sep 2018, 5:32 am   #20
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Default Re: Unknown Frequency Settings On Modulator

Quote:
Originally Posted by terrykc View Post
Courtesy of Alan Pemberton whose useful work has been archived here:

https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/Pembers/...ystems.html#E1

E1

The explanation from the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) is as follows:

The 41-68MHz Band I television allocation was agreed at the 1947 ITU (International Telecommunications Union) conference in 1947, and the first European channel plan was agreed in 1952 at the ITU conference in Stockholm. System B was at that time used by about a dozen stations and only three 7MHz-wide channels could be accommodated within the 27MHz allocation, so they were defined as 47-54MHz, 54-61MHz and 61-68MHz at the top of the band, leaving a 6MHz space empty at the low frequency end. This chunk of spectrum was not officially deleted from the plan until the 1961 Stockholm ITU conference, but in the meantime setmakers and others in the industry seem to have expected something to appear there and had named the other channels E2 - E4.

However, a few transmitters were known to use either 'E1', 40-47MHz, or 'E1A', 41-48MHz, during the 'forties or 'fifties, including ones in Bremen, West Germany, and at the Philips factory in Eindhoven in The Netherlands.
This part does not seem to be right:

”This chunk of spectrum [41 to 47 MHz] was not officially deleted from the plan until the 1961 Stockholm ITU conference, but in the meantime setmakers and others in the industry seem to have expected something to appear there and had named the other channels E2 - E4.”

The ST61 documents show Band I as covering 41 to 68 MHz, as per the ITU 1947 original allocation.

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As previously noted, ST61 did not show VHF channel numbers, only frequencies, and it is true that System B allocations started at 47 MHz, with none in the 41 to 47 MHz range. But the lower part of Band I remained in use and documented in ST61, examples being channels B1 and F2.

This list of European VHF TV channel numbers is from Wireless World (WW) 1959 March:

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The information in the whole article was said to have come from the broadcasting organizations themselves and the EBU. So the ITU seems not to have been involved. The VHF channel numbers all have letter prefixes, as follows:

B for the UK (Britain, or really, UKOBANI)
E for Europe (Western Europe)
O for OIRT countries (Eastern Europe)
F for France

Where the above channel numbers were determined by appropriate in-country authorities (GPO in the UK?), it seems unlikely that the designating instrument included the letter prefixes. More likely they were added post facto, and perhaps informally. But their inclusion in the WW article suggests that by 1959 they either had a very strong de facto presence or had become de jure, perhaps adopted and promulgated by the EBU. Given that the ITU opted to stay away from the VHF channel numbering party, the EBU seems to fall into the “usual suspect” category. (I haven’t found mention in any CCIR meeting documents, particularly those dealing with the details of the various TV transmission systems.)

One wonders if the above quoted EBU missive on VHF channels was compiled by someone without full access to the history.

By the way, WW detailed the Italian VHF channels A through H in the country entry for Italy; these were shown without the “I” prefix sometimes used.

Cheers,
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