Zenith Phonevision: Let's explore this

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by walterbeers

I never knew these existed (at least they weren't used here in Omaha) until Jamie (jstout) told me about this post yesterday. I assume it was analog video over a phone line, but when I have more time, I will research it some more, just out of curiosity. I remember a microwave link in which there was a movie channel (maybe 2), that used a dish aimed toward a tall building in central Omaha, transmitting mainly movies. (Early HBO?) of course this was before cable ever came to Omaha. Don't remember what the service was called anymore.

That microwave system was here in Milwaukee too. One of my professors used to pirate it. He used a round metal sled for a dish, and an oscillator to hetrodyne it down to the broadcast band...Supposedly he got a clearer picture than those in his area, but he had to periodically adjust the osc. to compensate for drift.

There is no way you could get NTSC video quality over a phone line at an acceptable frame rate for TV back then.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

That microwave system was here in Milwaukee too. One of my professors used to pirate it. He used a round metal sled for a dish, and an oscillator to hetrodyne it down to the broadcast band...Supposedly he got a clearer picture than those in his area, but he had to periodically adjust the osc. to compensate for drift.

There is no way you could get NTSC video quality over a phone line at an acceptable frame rate for TV back then.

I think, just about anyone that had any electronics knowledge built one! The one, I built was an octagonal PC board soldered to one pound coffee can. In the old neighborhood, I lived in, you could see the building where the signal came from, so it was real easy to receive it.