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  #31  
Old 05-16-2007, 08:06 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV
I used to build boxes for OnTV back then. There were stores that sold "a bag of parts" that coincidentally was the complete kit, but they couldn't tell you it was for a decoder box. Those early scrambling methods seem primitive now. Later, Sportsvision was added, on Channel 60. They were only testing, not even in service yet, and we were already adding two-channel switches to our boxes... It was more fun to build the boxes than to actually watch anything with them, since the sound was mediocre, the movies were edited, and of course they were the dreaded "pan-and-scan" format.
Were you one of the 14 or so folks ONTV sued for selling bags of parts or boxes? When that happened I walked on eggshells for a few weeks until it was clear I was in the clear... I only sold upgrade kits (AFC and AGC) for those kits, as I didn't want folks calling me every time it rained.... MY third re-design of the box locked VIR signals (on equipped tv's) where ONTV's boxes wouldn't... internal keyed agc issues, or more accurately, the lack of it. By that time I had something to compare it to.

Remember the "drilling" turn-on mod sheets? To default the potted addressable decoding module? I'm not sure if I actually WAS the first to figure that out...
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  #32  
Old 05-17-2007, 01:14 PM
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ChrisW6ATV ChrisW6ATV is offline
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I never got in trouble, but I had a couple of friends who did. They ran a store called "Azotic Industries".

AFC and AGC would have been nice upgrades-I never knew they were available. There were two box versions that I knew-the first was built into a speaker and had local audio, later there was one with audio re-modulated onto channel 3. There was also a simple mod to install in TV sets internally. It used a J.W. Miller #6333 coil and maybe a cap, to unscramble the picture, and a circuit with an LM565 PLL chip and a transistor for the sound, that you installed on the sound detector output. It was this circuit that was basically the same as the stereo sound subcarrier demodulator, and it also worked on Spectravision audio if I remember right. "Keyed AGC" was always the limitation for this and all the other video-based descramblers.

I never actually hacked one of the "real" ONTV boxes.
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  #33  
Old 05-30-2007, 08:32 PM
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  #34  
Old 05-30-2007, 09:05 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV
I never got in trouble, but I had a couple of friends who did. They ran a store called "Azotic Industries".

AFC and AGC would have been nice upgrades-I never knew they were available. There were two box versions that I knew-the first was built into a speaker and had local audio, later there was one with audio re-modulated onto channel 3. There was also a simple mod to install in TV sets internally. It used a J.W. Miller #6333 coil and maybe a cap, to unscramble the picture, and a circuit with an LM565 PLL chip and a transistor for the sound, that you installed on the sound detector output. It was this circuit that was basically the same as the stereo sound subcarrier demodulator, and it also worked on Spectravision audio if I remember right. "Keyed AGC" was always the limitation for this and all the other video-based descramblers.

I never actually hacked one of the "real" ONTV boxes.
Azotic... yes, on Belmont Ave. on Chicago... I remember them, they had a really wide varied assortment of parts...

I used a National chip IIRC that was made to work in descrambler setups (intended for authorized boxes) with a specific intenal breakout of video before the keyed agc was tapped, that allowed the video to be "corrected" before anything was done with it.
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