[Ham-Computers] Questions

[KD7JYK, 49H7KR]

: You guys are joking, right? You do not just plug in cables guys!


I can understand the confusion.  It's not that we're getting slower or
dumber in our old age, but things aren't as simple as they used to be.  THe
equipment is getting more complex and the standards have gone out the
window.

For some fifteen years I set up video surveillance systems.  Often these
were a mixture of equipment from the sixties on up.  My choices were
composite video outputs through RCA or BNC jacks and modulated RF\video on
channel three or four.  As the sytems I worked on got more complex, I used
video modulators capable of several dozen channels, usually over-the-air
channels 3 - 69.  As everything was done through cable, it wasn't a problem
of using channel 23 for a camera or data when 23 was used in a community.
This is all simple enough...

A couple years ago I bought a DVD player which I have since returned.  I
looked on the back to see what connections I need to use with my old Zenith
console TV.  On the back were two connections.  An F connector for RF,
channels 3 or 4 and an RCA jack for composite video.  Since I had three and
four occupied on my system and I would only use the player relatively
rarely, I decided I would use the RCA jack and put the composite video into
the AUX input of the TV.  I hooked it up and got the most horrible racket
from the speakers and the wierdest crap you ever say on the screen.  I
disconnected everything and tried again, same problem.  I check the cables,
check the TV etc.  Turns out the RCA jack on the played did NOT have
composite video on it like every jack used for this purpose since the
beginning of time but it was a "high speed digital data format" according to
the manual...  completely useless to me and incompatable with everything I
have ever seen or owned...

The fellows initial question sounds simple enough, it's just a matter of the
right setting between the source and monitor, but nowadays it isn't as
simple as just hooking up cables.

: (

Kurt