It’s not the case. We had WISC-TV, the CBS affiliate, on channel 3 in our area. I seem to recall that one could switch between channel 2 and channel 3 on the Atari RF modulators, and later, VCRs could switch between channel 3 and channel 4. I think they used 2 and 3 because those were the first two channels, and the FCC wouldn’t allow two adjacent channels in the same area, so one of the two would always be unused for everybody. (Oddly, there was no TV channel 1.)
I could be wrong, but I think that was what the convention was in the US at least.
Similar to how there is nothing “stopping” a web server from having a 192.168.x.x address, but we have a standard that blocks off those addresses to be used inside of your own network.
I remember the coax cable but did not know about channel 3 being local communication. I thought it was just convention.
Thanks for teaching me.
It’s not the case. We had WISC-TV, the CBS affiliate, on channel 3 in our area. I seem to recall that one could switch between channel 2 and channel 3 on the Atari RF modulators, and later, VCRs could switch between channel 3 and channel 4. I think they used 2 and 3 because those were the first two channels, and the FCC wouldn’t allow two adjacent channels in the same area, so one of the two would always be unused for everybody. (Oddly, there was no TV channel 1.)
I had a nes and that switched between 3 to 4. My next console was n64 which had the 3 wires you see in the original post
I could be wrong, but I think that was what the convention was in the US at least.
Similar to how there is nothing “stopping” a web server from having a 192.168.x.x address, but we have a standard that blocks off those addresses to be used inside of your own network.