Does RF Famicom work with "cable-ready" US TVs?

In case anyone else runs into the same problem:

U.S. "cable ready" TVs can be switched between two band plans: the "over the air" band plan and the "standard analog cable" band plan. One of these band plans includes a few Japanese channels.

From "Television channel frequencies" on Wikipedia, section "Japan": Japan's VHF band plan puts the video carrier for TV channels 1 through 3 on 91.25, 97.25, and 103.25 MHz, with audio 4.5 MHz up (95.75, 101.75, and 107.75 MHz). Other countries' VHF band plans put FM radio broadcasts in that band. So if you can pick up an RF Famicom's audio with an FM radio around those frequencies, that's a start.

From "American_television_frequencies" on Wikipedia, section "Channel frequencies (2)": The standard cable band plan puts channels 95 through 97 on the same frequencies as Japanese channels 1 through 3.

Who has had success or failure receiving an RF signal from a Japanese game console on channels 95 through 97 of a North American cable-ready TV?

I think I already asked that question but my memory fails me (not a first ), even if you have a "RF" like entry on your TV, some new one don't accept analog signal anymore. This is the problem with my current LCD tv and I cannot use my famicom on them, only the AV one. I don't know if this is common on US TV though but something to be careful when buying a new one.

When I got my Famicom I tried 2 or 3 different LCD TVs. None of them had access to that channel. I stopped trying once I AV modded it though. On my main TV, even for the channels it does get the quality of the picture from its RF cable tuner is terrible. I don't like to run my NES through it either.

I have got it to work with my Vizio LCD. I believe I had to set it to cable mode to get to the channel range. I think it worked on 97. I'll have to try again. The image did look pretty noisy though.

The answer is yes, it does work. However, support for it varies per TV, or "some other magic". I have no problems using a classic RF-based Famicom on my Sony Wega/Trinitron KV-13FS100 CRT with a NES RF adapter (I do not have a native Famicom RF adapter; the NES ones work fine/fit the same jack), then using channel 3 or 4 (I forget which). I've said so before.

I gave away my RF-based Famicom a few years ago (I have a legit AV Famicom now), but AFAIK the fellow I gave it to **also** had no problem getting it to work in the same manner. I can ask him + get details of his setup if helpful.

In general though, most older North American TVs won't let you get up into the channel 95-97 range. But as I said, using a NES RF adapter worked just fine for me.

I have had no trouble connecting RF Famicom through a VCR on channel 95 or 97 (I have not tried directly on the TV). A passive adapter is needed. The picture quality isn't best though.

If your US CRT TV can allow you to select channel 95 or 96, then it should be able to display Famicom RF. My CRT TVs handle it just fine.

I don't think this is correct. Using the NES RF adapter will connect it to channels 95/96. At least, mine does not appear on channels 3/4 when using the NES RF adapter, and other claims say this goes to 95/96.

I don't actually have a Famicom RF adapter to test, though, mine came without cables. What's the difference between the two models of RF switch? I was of the assumption that the channel frequency is selected upstream inside the console, not part of the switch itself. (I don't know how an RF switch works though.)

Also, looking at my preferred TV again, its tuner hilariously jumps from 94.13 to 98.1... I dunno what that's about but they clearly deliberately skipped those channels on its tuner implementation.

If I still had my (non-AV) Famicom I'd demonstrate it. Rephrased: I'm 99% certain the TV has to be set on channel 3 or 4 when using a NES RF adapter on a Famicom, at least on my TV/setup, additionally because because my TV doesn't actually let you go up to channel 95/96. :-) I'll see if I can get my hands on original Famicom again and demonstrate it with a video.

I strongly suspect there's a missing piece of the puzzle that can explain it all, but I just don't know what it is. Maybe my TV is doing something particularly unique. Don't know.

If you can't switch above 69 or 83, then your set is using the over-the-air band plan.

Analog TVs and VCRs set to the US over-the-air band plan support VHF channels 2-13 and UHF channels 14-83 (or 14-69 for models made starting in the late 1980s once channels 70 and up were reallocated to analog cell phones). "Cable-ready" TVs and VCRs have a switch to use the standard analog cable band plan instead, and this is the band plan with channels 95-97 corresponding to the first three Japanese over-the-air channels.

If your TV has a switch for [ AIR | STD | HRC | IRC ], then AIR and STD are the over-the-air and standard analog cable band plans. AIR may be labeled OTA or ANT (antenna). HRC and IRC were modified band plans adopted by a minority of cable systems to address specific engineering problems.

Well, I only mentioned it because it was amusing. It felt like the TV was mocking me by omitting those specific channels and very few others.

Since you're trying to rationalize it, I should tell you that my TV's tuner doesn't really correspond to that description at all.

It has no AIR / STD switch of any kind that I can see.

It has the following channels: 1-51, 54-60, 66-94, 98-115, 117.

Many of the upper channels are subdivided into .0 .1 .2 etc., sometimes into 2 or 3, sometimes into 16 parts. I can't discern much pattern for how many subdivisions something should get.

This is a Westinghouse TV I bought in California in 2007.

It is not particularly surprising that some TVs omit cable-ready channels 95, 96 & 97. The frequencies at which these channels operate, 90MHz to 108MHz, lie in the heart of the very busy FM Radio spectrum, 87.9MHz to 107.9MHz. The conflict between the two band frequencies must make for some crappy picture quality.

I just wanted to point out the term "cable ready" and tepples's advice to look for a switch for AIR, STD, HRC, or IRC dates back to analog-only TVs. Modern TVs with digital tuners will typically just offer a menu item to choose between a cable signal or an over the air antenna signal. On some TVs you may have to start a channel scan before it will ask you if you are using a cable signal or an over the air antenna. On modern TVs, there's unlikely to be a physical switch and unlikely to be options to choose among the cable frequency plan variations STD, HRC, or IRC. (My assumption is when you select "cable", modern TVs will scan each of the STD, HRC, and IRC variants and choose the best one.)

If you have set your TV to the cable mode and you still can't see channel 95, 96, or 97, maybe try entering 95.0, 96.0, or 97.0 on the remote. On some TVs, a channel number ending with ".0" is used to refer to analog channels.

___
About North American digital channels

On a North American analog-only TV, once you choose the "antenna" or "cable" mode, each frequency slot has one and only one channel number. On an analog-only TV, if you haven't done a channel scan yet, you can still enter 13 on the remote and get analog channel 13, as long as your antenna or cable is getting the signal.

With North American digital over the air channels, the metadata in channel's stream tells the TV what the channel number is. The digital channel number doesn't have to match the traditional analog channel number that corresponds to the frequency slot the digital channel is using. So the tuner has to scan all the available frequency slots to compile a list of the available digital channel numbers and their corresponding frequency slots. If you haven't yet done a channel scan, and enter channel 13.1, your TV won't know for certain what frequency slot to go to. Since it has no channel 13.1 in its memory list, it might try the frequency slot for analog channel 13, but it might not find a digital channel there, or it may find a digital channel other than 13.1 there.

(I assume North American digital cable channels work similarly, but I haven't read much about them or played around with them.)


The channels numbers you currently get are likely the results of whatever the last channel scan found. As described above, with digital channels (at least with digital over the air channels) the channel number you see doesn't have to correspond to any particular frequency slot.

I can't manually enter 95 or 95.0 on my TV. It will refuse and say "channel not found".

It does indeed have a "cable scan" and "antenna scan" option, but it also as an option to enable all channels (and manually enable/disable them). All the scans will do for me is disable all my channels, since I have nothing connected. Neither option adds new channels that aren't already in the all channels list, and I can just enable or disable them manually there anyway.

Edit: Hrm, I ran the cable scan and it actually just deleted all the channels in the list rather than disable them... and I can't get back all those channels I previously had enabled? I didn't think it did this before... Maybe I'll try plugging in my Famicom and running the scan to see what happens...

Edit 2: Ha ha! Now my TV has exactly 1 channel... 95. Well, I guess that worked, though I guess there's no way for me to get it to recognize channel 3 at the same time, and the cable scan takes like half an hour to run. I guess it's nice to know I can run my Famicom on 95 with this after all, but now all the other channels are inaccessible.

So I guess my TV only has channels it can find during a single scan. >:I Well, just one more thing that sucks about its tuner. Not sure I'll ever need it but this experiment has made it even less useful than it was before.

To get it to recognize both, you may have to do what amounts to the old PlayStation swap trick. Try turning on your channel 3 source at the start of the scan and your channel 95 source at the end.

I hate the auto-scanning feature. Fortunately my TVs will let me add channels manually without weirdness. So I typically have Channels 2, 3, 4 & 95, 96 added manually. Atari was partial to allowing the user to select between 2 & 3 via RF, Nintendo preferred selecting between 3 & 4.

Over the Air and Cable-ready channels 2-13 used identical frequencies in North America. It's the UHF channels from 14 on upwards where the channel assignments used by OTA and Cable differ. OTA never went above 83 and was restricted to 69 by 1983. Cable squeezed in channels in all bands up to 1.02GHz to provide up to 158 channels selectable through Cable-ready TVs See here for more info : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Ameri ... requencies

If you had a cable box, typically you would set it to "broadcast" a seldom-used OTA channel, such as 3, and use the cable remote to change channels on the box instead of the TV. The TV's channel would remain at 3.

With the thanks of r0ni / Jay Lanagan, who I gave my Famicom to years ago, and was kind enough to send it back for me to test on, I can happily state that I was incorrect in my insistence that using an NES RF adapter (NES-003) worked on channels 3/4 with my NTSC Sony Wega KV-13FS100. I have to use channel 95 or 96. Details on how to get that to work on this TV:

* Famicom: Adjust TV/Game switch to Game -- if Famicom is missing labels, this switch is the one closest to the AC adapter jack -- left = TV, right = Game
* Famicom: Adjust CH1/CH2 switch to CH1 (95) or CH2 (96) -- if Famicom is missing labels, this switch is the one closest to the RF jack -- left = CH1, right = CH2
* Famicom: power on with a valid/known working game installed
* TV: Set Input to Cable (i.e. coaxial jack)
* TV: Channel Setup menu: set Channel Fix to Off -- important!
* TV: Channel Setup menu: set Cable to On -- important!
* At this point you can either input channel 95 + Enter or channel 96 + Enter on the remote, depending on what you picked for CH1/CH2, or you can select Auto Program from the Channel Setup menu. The latter will let the TV scan through channels 1-125. It will eventually find the Famicom and that channel will be auto-added to your selectable channel list. Else see the user manual for details on how to add channels by hand.

What the important steps are about: if Channel Fix is set to anything other than Off, you can't use the Cable option. Likewise, failure to set Cable to On will limit the channel range to 1-69. The user manual describes these as follows:


I will state that channels 4-6 or thereabouts (hard to pinpoint) and something like 27-28, do briefly see a picture, but the signal won't stay stable (read: it's unusable).

Also, if you're not also attaching a cable TV to the other end of it, I think probably any RF adapter will work?

A schematic of it that I found, I think is designed to block out the interfering signal on channels 3 and 4, while more or less connecting the NES RF jack's output directly to the coaxial input on your TV. The blocking should switch on only when power is present from the NES' incoming signal. (RL filter network covering the range of channels 3-4?)

So... a Famicom one I assume would do the same, just blocking Japanese channels 1 & 2 instead... unless there's something different about it. (What does that TV/Game switch do?)

If you don't have the problem of trying to combine NES / Famicom with incoming cable television, I think you can use something much simpler that just directly connects the RF RCA to your TV's coaxial input. One of these?


Japanese 95 is adjacent to 6 in frequency, according to this table. I think there's a lot of crosstalk between channels, but normally it's too weak to interfere with a signal already present on that channel, at least with cable channels. With antenna television that was a bit of a different story, where there were often very mismatched amplitudes.

@rainwarrior To clarify a bit about the RF adapters -- I suspect you know all of this, but some of the questions and "what does that tv/game switch do?" prompted me write this. Apologies if I'm adding confusion.

The native Famicom RF adapter (HVC-003) looks like this (higher res). The long spooled up cable plugs into the Famicom. The top-right connector plugs into your TV. The left-bottom terminal is intended for you to insert a raw coaxial antenna for broadcast television. The left-upper-two terminals I'm not sure about -- the Japanese talks about a VTR (video tape recorder), but maybe it's just an additional pair of terminals for older TVs that have classic pair of U-terminals on the them that can't use the top-right connector? I don't know. I also don't know what "U-V" refers to, but possibly UHF/VHF (the Japanese comes out to be "U-V duplexer").

We had more or less the same thing in North America a la Game/Computer and TV RF switches. The difference is that the physical switch to move between Game/Computer and TV was on the box itself; with the Famicom the switch/slider is on the console, along with the channel switch. I suspect this may answer some questions about what the actual HVC-003 is doing compared to what we're used to in North America.

The NES RF adapter (NES-003) is, I think, the exact same thing -- RF/RCA plus into the NES, other coaxial end plugs into the TV, and there's a coaxial plug for an antenna -- just that there is no physical Game/TV switch any more. I think the adapter just figures it out automatically based on signal strength or voltage or something from the RF/RCA end. (The NES was the first system I saw that had one of these; I was used to the aforementioned ones with the physical Game/TV switch on them. Not having to reach behind your TV to switch between things any more was convenient)

I've never seen a Famicom RF adapter actually, so that was cool to get a picture.

I had an Atari 2600 with one of those RF switches that has an actual switch on it. That one's easy to understand though, it's a literal SPDT switch.

The NES RF adapter eliminates the need for the switch by actively filtering out the corresponding channels (I think) whenever it is receiving a signal.

The Famicom RF adapter... as far as I can tell externally it should work more or less the same as the NES RF adapter, except those other terminals are weird. The diagram seems to suggest that you should bridge them together with another wire...? That can't be right. Maybe I'm interpreting that diagram wrong though, and it is like the old two-terminal connection we also used to have. Though that leaves me with the question of how the alternate connection works. You have a bare coax wire core going to the shared terminal, and the metal clamp should connect with the outer shielding? That seems really complicated for people to set up, but maybe that's how it was in Japan. ...except on the other end of the adapter is a regular coaxial connector?? Why didn't it have an input like that too instead of something that seems to require you to strip the cable yourself?

So that still leaves the question of why there's a TV / Game switch? Maybe it's just a way to turn off the RF output without powering off the Famicom, in case you need to leave it on, but want to watch TV, and don't want to pull out the cable? Though I guess if that's all it does, I can see why they just dropped the feature with the NES.

I didn't check when I had my TV set up, and I've since re-scanned it back to channel 3 so I can't really test anymore without doing the whole scan thing, but if you've got it going, does the TV / Game switch just make it stop outputting its RF signal without affecting anything else?

Found some diagrams in the Famicom manual:0
https://archive.org/details/Family_Computer_1986_Nintendo_JP_rev_4/page/n5
(Extends for several pages.)

The pictures are interesting, it seems like there was a common Japanese coaxial cable ending type that didn't have a screw end but instead the inner wire extended out to be wrapped around a terminal, and the shielding had a big connecting surface below that, which would be clamped to the device? I'm trying to find a picture of this that isn't a diagram, but my knowledge of Japanese isn't good enough to find it so far.

The screw type ending that comes out of the RF adapter appears to have been a separate snap-on adapter that may have been provided with the Famicom? An emerging standard, but not the norm at the time?

Edit: Wow, this looks like instructions for stripping your own coaxial cable at the back of the manual:
https://archive.org/details/Family_Computer_1986_Nintendo_JP_rev_4/page/n17

So that answers my question about that part. Yes, you really were expected to strip wires to hook up your Famicom.

Japan, like the US, used the standard 300 Ohm twin lead balanced connectors for connecting VHF antennas. However, for 75 Ohm coaxial connections, they did not adopt the screw connector as we did, at least not until later. The connection is the same, the center wire would be wrapped around a screw-type connector like speaker wire and the shield would be held down by a metal clamp. The adapters they show at pages 6 & 7 of the Family Computer manual are just wiring adapters. Everything about that RF box is 300 Ohm it appears. Page 8 shows the adapter for balanced leads and what appears to be a 300-to-75 Ohm Balun. Page 5 shows the stripped wire connected directly to the terminal on the back of the TV, but I think the manual is indicating that these TVs should have a switch to select 300 Ohm or 75 Ohm connections.