Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?)

tony duell ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk
Fri Jan 23 14:41:54 CST 2015


> 
> Doing such a thing would have an appreciable chance of causing damage to
> the modulator because it's feeding into something that's probably not

I think that's unlikely. The modulator has a very low RF output (after all, it is designed to
connect to an input that typically gets microvolt signals from an aerial) so there is not
enough RF power around to do damage no matter where it ends up. Certainly
running a modulator into an open circuit or short circuit does no harm (These are
big no-nos for radio transmitters)). 

For that matter, I am not convinced that the aerial input of a TV is going to be tuned
to the modulator output frequency. Particularly not if the TV is tuned to a different 
channel :-). And I have never seen warnings about making sure the TV is correctly 
tuned before powering up.

> tuned to precisely the right frequency.  Antennas designed only to receive
> tend to be very poor for transmitting.

How come? The elementary books on aerials suggest that a good transmitting 
aerial is a good receiving aerial and vice versa.

-tony


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