on the workbench tonight I have a piece of equipment that was banned by the Federal
Communications Commission in 1987. can you guess which one it is no it's not this Panasonic TV
it's not these two Sony VHS VCRs nor is it this Sony Digital8 Handycam
instead it is this Archer multiple video distribution system its purpose is to take
video from three different sources and rebroadcast it onto three UHF TV channels so that you can
watch all three sources on one TV without needing to swap any cables around for example I have one
VCR playing on Channel 74. another VCR playing on Channel 78 and the Handycam playing on Channel 82.
if you've never heard of channels that high ever being used you're not alone because they
were actually reallocated by the FCC to what they called Land Mobile Radio
Service all the way back in 1970 however it was allowed to coexist with low power
UHF TV translators which are transmitters which take the signal of one station on
one channel and rebroadcast it on another channel in order to add to its coverage
those low power UHF TV translators were allowed to occupy the channels between
70 and 83 however those were shared with cell phone service but beginning in 1987
the FCC decided to also allocate part of those frequencies for use by what they called Public
Safety in other words police departments fire departments rescue squads and the like
so in the late 1980s you saw TVs going from being able to tune all the way up to channel 83 on UHF
to now no longer being able to tune any higher than Channel 69 on UHF due to the FCC decision
as a result Radio Shack was forced to take this product which they had only
just introduced in 1985 off the market until they were able to redesign it to
only use channels 69 and below and that's exactly what they did they introduced a new
version and on the box they advertised works with all 69 channel TV tuners
nonetheless despite the FCC banning it 35 years ago I still have one of these
older versions that uses those upper UHF channels above 69 and it still works fine
here's a closer look at the now forbidden Archer multiple video distribution system
it says nice metal silver box on the back you can see all the inputs and outputs
the first input is just a passthrough from your antenna or cable system so
whatever is coming into this will be passed through to the outputs but then it has three
auxiliary inputs which accept any video source broadcasting on Channel 3 so for
example the output of a VCR or a satellite TV tuner or a video game you can connect
those to these three inputs it needs to be channel 3 it doesn't work with channel 4
but instead of just being passed through to the output which wouldn't make any
sense because they're all on channel 3 and if you try to combine them together they would
interfere with each other instead the aux 1 input is rebroadcast on UHF Channel 74.
the aux 2 input is rebroadcast on channel 78 and the aux 3 input is rebroadcast on channel
82 and you have three outputs so you can actually connect three different TVs to this
so that was part of its purpose you could have multiple TVs in the house all sharing
one VCR one cable TV box and one satellite TV tuner or anything else you want to have
connected just the downside is that all three users would need to agree on which channel
to leave the cable box set to because they wouldn't be able to independently control it
and that redesigned version which used channels 69 and below due to the FCC no longer allowing these
high UHF channels from being used only had two aux inputs besides the passthrough had one RF input
for channel 3 and one composite video input with audio jacks so during the redesign it lost one of
the inputs I guess because it was more likely that the Channel 69 and below would be actually used by
local TV stations in your area whereas these upper UHF channels were very unlikely to be used for
anything in your area so it was almost guaranteed you wouldn't have any problems with interference
here's the sticker on the bottom indicating it was made in Taiwan and this is the Radio
Shack date code indicating it was made in October 1985. also on the
bottom it has three thumbwheels for fine-tuning those three inputs
here's a look inside and it's probably not as exciting as you'd had hoped because besides the
power supply most of what you can see are these shielded metal boxes because
these are all on Channel 3 and if they're allowed to radiate out any of the signal
it would interfere with the neighboring one so that's why they're all in these
shielded metal boxes to keep that cross interference from happening
and then on the circuit board on the bottom is where all the magic happens
where it takes those inputs and rebroadcasts them on the upper UHF channels and those are
very sensitive coils there if I touch them it would upset the tuning calibration of
this so I'm not even going to try to take these out to get a better look
at that it's working fine so I'm just going to leave it alone and put the cover back on
and because as this name suggests this was designed to be a video distribution system I
think its output power is quite a bit higher than the RF modulators built into most VCRs and other
devices like that I'm getting a very strong and clear image with almost no noticeable interference
now like I mentioned any TV made since the late 1980s can no longer tune these upper UHF channels
but I do have one VCR from 1985 which does tune up to channel 83 on UHF and I'm feeding its video
and audio output into my modern LCD TV so now I have it tuned to one of these VCRs on channel 74.
then the channel 78 is the other VCR
now on 82 is the Handycam
and I guess that was the end of the tape we just saw
now I'm going to give you some direct hookup video samples of the radar tape
on channel 74. the VW Jetta tape on channel 78 and the Digital8 Handycam tape on Channel 82.
"more than anything it depends on how well you prepare yourself
if you've done your homework and make a neat and respectful appearance most judges are willing to
listen to your case some will go out of their way to make allowances for your inexperience
judges aren't ogres but their time is valuable don't waste it by coming unprepared
you don't have to be a Clarence Darrow or even Perry Mason to present an effective defense"
"now central locking system also has a selective lock unlock feature to unlock a single front door
just turn the key to the left once two turns of the key in rapid succession unlocks all of
the doors now turn it to the left and hold it until all of the windows are lowered to
the desired position by the way this works for all windows this convenience open feature will
help cool off the inside of your Jetta when it's been sitting in the hot sun for a while"
by the way if you're wondering how I'm able to get an RF output from a camcorder
that's because one of these things a Sony RFU adapter which plugs into the
audio and video outputs and there's an extra connector there which provides power to the
RF modulator through this center pin here so you plug it in to the camcorder you get
a switch between channel 3 and channel 4. and then you plug this into your TV or VCR
so that's been a look at the Archer multiple video distribution system
which was banned by the FCC because it used upper UHF channels which were reallocated for
mobile phones and Public Safety service in the late 1980s but if you have one of these it's an
interesting way to make use of these otherwise unused upper UHF channels which you'll need
something from the 1980s or older to actually be able to tune and no it's not compatible
with cable tv tuners which go above Channel 69 because those use different frequencies
so if I had one of these at the time I would have been very happy with it
despite the FCC banning it because it allowed me to connect three different video sources
plus the passthrough from the antenna and view them on three upper UHF TV channels on my TV