South African TV

[Mike Watterson]

But it wasn't a technical decision

[colly0410]

Oh yeah, politics again init. If politics didn't rear it's head what would they have chosen? I'd have probably chosen D/K, but they didn't ask me for some reason.

[Mike Watterson]

Yes, IBM didn't ask me about using DOS from Microsoft and the 8088 CPU in a rig built out of a catalogue in 1980. I could have given them good advice, but then, in the minds of IBM, it wasn't a serious product. That's why they chose a cheap bad architecture not-really-16bit cpu based on 8085/Z80 with 64K segments and subcontracted the OS to MS, who they knew didn't have one and were only buying in QDOS, reverse engineered from CP/M 86.
There were better CPUs, at same price that had proper linear memory, even ones already made by or used by IBM. There were better OSes than CP/M-86 or Microsoft's clone of it, but they didn't work on an 8088 or 8086, and badly on the 80186, it needed the 80286, but most 80286 and many 80386 only ever ran in 8088/8086 brain dead mode. The IBM PC and DOS held back the industry and most small business computing by at least 10 years, nearly 18 years.

Almost always things are not about the best technical decision, or even the money, but company politics and egos. Or patents. 3G was inferior in many ways to GSM and was simply a wider band version of the poor USA CDMA. But USA companies wanted into the patent pool. So we got "cell breathing" and then the HSPA kludge later (3G was only 340Kbps approx). 3G was political.

[Synchrodyne]

It would appear that the South African decision to use System I was made long before the TV service started in that country, and probably in the early 1960s.

This comes out of the “Final Acts” document for the ITU African VHF/UHF Broadcasting Conference held in Geneva in 1963, available on-line at:  http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/...01PDFE.PDF.

Therein, South Africa was listed as a System I country, without any qualifying footnotes.  (See page 322.)

The Francophone countries were listed under System K*.  (Presumably K* later became K’, sometimes shown as K1.)

Another outcome was that UHF TV channelling was to follow the European precedent of 8 MHz spacing and numbering from 21 upwards.  VHF TV channelling was to use 8 MHz spacing with a 7 MHz alternative for countries already using System B:

   

South Africa was listed as planning to use Bands I, III, IV and V, but as already noted, Band I was diverted to other uses before the TV service started.


Cheers,

Steve

[colly0410]

Does South Africa use/will use band 3 for digital TV like Australia?

[Synchrodyne]

Apparently yes, judging by the list found here:  http://downloads.sentech.co.za/television/all?page=1.


Cheers,

Steve

[Terry]

Steve, that list shows individual programmes, rather than DTT muxes, on analogue carrier frequencies.

The DTT FAQ link: http://www.sentech.co.za/content/dtt-faq does not work but http://downloads.sentech.co.za/content/dtt-faq does and reveals the following:

13. Will I need a new aerial to receive DTT?

- Viewers will require a wide band UHF (Ultra High Frequency) aerial to receive the DTT transmissions. The aerial currently used to receive SABC1, 2 & 3 will not work as these are VHF (Very High Frequency) aerials.

[Synchrodyne]

Thanks, Terry.

I should have looked more carefully at that web page! it is obvious now that it referred to analogue channels.  Not so much a senior moment as plain carelessness , and forgetting "festina lente".  

Anyway, so South African digital TV is UHF only.

Cheers,

Steve