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Old 02-25-2017, 08:28 PM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
<----Zenith C845
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fairport Harbor, Ohio (near Lake Erie)
Posts: 4,035
Since I don't bother with OTA television signals anymore (I watch all my TV via streaming video, DVDs and VHS, having cable on my account only so my Roku's TWC TV app will bring in local channels), the repack does not now and will not, ever, concern me in the least.

BTW, I've been wondering about channel 37. If this channel was never intended to (and in fact is forbidden to) be used as a TV broadcast frequency in this country, why do TVs still tune it? There should have been a way to block that channel somehow, whether by mechanically blocking the tuner at 37 (meaning the tuner would go from 14-36 and then 38-83, with a blank spot on the tuning dial on the front of the set where channel 37 would have been) or any other method so that the tuner would skip that channel. I guess the only reason those continuous UHF tuners even tuned channel 37 at all is due to the nature of continuous tuning; now that I think of it, it would be almost impossible to design any continuous TV tuner such that it would skip any channel. Even the old Zenith varactor tuning systems in their early 1980s TVs could tune to channel 37, and in fact there was a tab for that channel which could be inserted in one of the blank UHF channel positions (U1-U6).

The only other thing I can come up with is that broadcast use of channel 37 in Canada was in fact permitted, with stations on the air on that channel in some cities. I never saw one when I was still watching TV using an antenna, but of course that doesn't mean there might have been at least one channel 37 station north of the border.

I am only guessing at this, of course, since I don't know how Canada's TV broadcasting rules are set up. It could be, however, that use of channel 37 for TV in Canada in some areas near the US border would in fact be forbidden, if the authorities (Canada's "FCC") thought a Canadian station on that channel might interfere with U. S. radio astronomy operations.
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Jeff, WB8NHV

Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002

Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten.

Last edited by Jeffhs; 02-25-2017 at 08:36 PM.
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