Re: Boston Catholic Television (Was 103.5FM...now 'Memory Lane')

[Sven Franklyn Weil <sven@gordsven.com>]

On Mon, 5 Nov 2001, Peter George wrote:

>      The Boston Catholic Television Center used to
> operate "in school" programming using ITFS
> (Instructional Television Fixed Service) transmitters,
> on the microwave bands.  These receivers used

So THAT'S what those microwave dishes atop most of the Catholic schools
and churches are!!! I always wondered, when I was younger, what they were
used for.  Atop Staten Island's Todt Hill here in New York City, the NYC
Archdiocese has a microwave transmitter tower (also used by WSIA-88.9 FM
for its antenna).  The thing points north, and al the dishes on these
churches point south.....so now I always thought it had to be some sort
of closed circuit TV system for the schools.

P.S. Jim, what's a UHF strip?  First time I've heard of those. 

In old encyclopaedias I've read about the UHF converter boxes (which are
almost like the analogue CATV boxes used today).  THe thing is about the
size of a radio, you connect it to the TV's antenna screws and tune the TV
set to channel 3 and you could watch the UHF stations over VHF 3 -- much
like you do with CATV, VCRs and VideoCD/DVD players today.

In fact, some years back, I had a TV set that only picked up VHF channels
so remembering what I had read as a kid, I used a cable box to pick up
over-the air UHF stations by hooking up a pair of rabbit ears to the
CATV-in jack in the back of the box.  I figured it would work....and it
did!

-- 
Sven Franklyn Weil            "The needs of the many outweigh 
<sven@gordsven.com>                      the needs of the few
<http://www.gordsven.com/sven>                   or the one." 
                                                     -- Surak