Xref: utzoo rec.arts.tv:40911 sci.electronics:21149
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!umich!sharkey!lopez!flash
From: flash@lopez.UUCP (Gary Bourgois)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Cable converters that don't disturb channel mapping
Message-ID: <1991Jun24.201052.22862@lopez.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jun 91 20:10:52 GMT
References: <1991Jun22.225534.4713@hermesa.uucp> <1976@vidiot.UUCP>
Organization: Great White North/UPLink
Lines: 50

In <1976@vidiot.UUCP> brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot) writes:

><The descrambler maps everything to channel 3.  If I had an "inline"
><descrambler, it would generally be much handier for me; I could tape one
><premium channel while watching another, etc.
><
><Does anyone offer this?  Is there some technical reason why it's not feasible?

>Technically not feasible at this time.  Actually it is cost prohibitive.  It
>can be done, but at great cost.  No cable viewer would want to pay for such
>a box.

Mr. Videot is semi-correct.  It depends on how many premium channels,
and how your system is set up, and how much you want to play.  What I
did years ago in a similar situation was to use ONE descrambler to feed
a separate cable to the rest of my home with an A/B switch so I could
watch HBO in any room on the second cable.  Then I got creative and
acquired a modulator that fed an unused channel and re inserted HBO
there.  This made it work on ONE main cable that fed my home, and I
could tape HBO like it was a regular station.

I got my stuff for free.  The modulator was an old tube type unit I got
from a friend who used to rebuild cable TV head ends.  I have seen these
units new for $202, which may or may not be cost prohibitive.  You will
also need a means of DEMODULATING the signal, which can be had for
around $70.  SO for under $300 per channel you can do it with new
components.  You can also do it for near free if you know someone in the
cable TV business, or know what to look for at a Hamfest.  You can even
use an old VCR to do this (One which has a working tuner, but the
mechanics are blown).  In this case you would set the VCR to either
channel 3 or 4, and would have to build up a filter network to remove
the existing channel 3 or 4 (hope it has nothing you want to watch) and
also filter the VCR's output to keep it narrower so it wont interfer
with ajacent channels.

The point is, where there is a will, there is a way.  I currently
distrubute THREE in house channels on my home cable system.  One has my
satellite dish, one has a vcr for watching tapes in any room, and one
has the status display of the BBS that I run (lopez).  My total out or
pocket expense for this system was about $40 (the UHF modulator, a
startron, which is no longer available, sadly) 

I would not let anyone telling me something can't be done stop me from
doing it.

-- 
=Marquette MI: It's Not the END of the world, but you can see it from here=
==  Gary Bourgois flash@lopez (rutgers!sharkey!lopez!flash)  GWN UPLink  ==
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