OT Analog UHF TV transmissions.

[The Other Mike]

Fire and Chromecast require an HDMI port, anything 'analogue' would surely come with scart or a composite input at best.

[John Rumm]

Depends on the vintage of the set. There were plenty of "HD ready" sets with analogue tuners.

However reading the OP's second post, it seems he means they were pocket TVs and not just "portable". So chances of them having HDMI seem remote.

[Robert]

They fetch £2-3 plus postage on eBay so hardly worth the effort. eBay is always a good guide to what is in demand, you do get surprises sometimes with old technology. e.g. VCRs at the moment cant get enough of them to sell in my local charity shop.

[tony sayer]

Yes was that so bad seeing the 50 or more dross dig it all channels:(...

[NY]

Most of the additional channels that satellite or terrestrial give you are dross. But there are a few (BBC Four, Yesterday, Drama, ITV3, Talking Pictures) which I would miss if I didn't have them.

But as for makeover, reality TV or shopping channels - utter bilgewater and a great waste of bandwidth!

[tabbypurr]

I thought they were all dross.

[jgh]

No it didn't. With 8MHz per channel and an empty channel between each used channel it allowed 24 channels.

Where I lived I could easily pick up about 12 channels.

[tabbypurr]

that doesn't mean one could receive 24 channels of programming with differing content. That's what I was referring to. The system creaked a bit when they added the 5th.

NT

[Andrew]

I seem to remember this question being asked by people emigrating to NZ, which uses PAL, but a UK TV would not have any sound without modification.

[John Rumm]

That is not the same as building an entire *network* with lots of channels. When the UK was developing colour TV transmission here they were thought to be over egging it by most of our continental neighbours, because they were designing the system to support two channels with the possibility of expansion to a third. Most other countries were designed for one, with an expansion option to a second.

When you take into account the inability to tolerate multipath at the receiver, and the relatively coarse filtering available at the transmitters of the day, you romp through available/useable channels very quickly.

Adding channel 4 was quite a technical challenge, and channel five was never really possible to do completely, and even then it required use of channels previously set aside for other applications.

And how many of those were ostensibly a duplicate channel from a different transmitter? Also keep in mind that the whole populous does not live in your street! Some areas posed a far more complicated geographical challenge to getting proper coverage with just the three main channels.

[tony sayer]

Agree with BBC 4 that is a decent service:)...