[usconservative]

What about old analog TVs without any attached digital gizmos. Could they ever be used as an alternate communication system?

I don't see how, but perhaps you may want to ask backwoods-engineer if he can think of anything.

Funny thing is, I still have one of the last Zenith glass-picture tube TV's to roll off the line in Melrose Park, IL (not terribly far from where I live) and about all it gets used for anymore is a tertiary game console display when my sons and nephew's are going to war playing Battlefield Bad Company II ....

[Nowhere Man]

I don't see how, but perhaps you may want to ask backwoods-engineer if he can think of anything.

Funny thing is, I still have one of the last Zenith glass-picture tube TV's to roll off the line in Melrose Park, IL (not terribly far from where I live) and about all it gets used for anymore is a tertiary game console display when my sons and nephew's are going to war playing Battlefield Bad Company II ....

Aside from a source of parts to build radio receivers/transceivers and/or a pirate analogue TV station, I don't know what use old TV's would be good for. I have a 1982 Zenith I use everyday that we bought new, she is 29 years old, shows her age a little but still works.

[backwoods-engineer]

What about old analog TVs without any attached digital gizmos. Could they ever be used as an alternate communication system? I don't see how, but perhaps you may want to ask backwoods-engineer if he can think of anything.

Amateur radio operators already use old analog TVs to receive amateur TV transmissions, since we "hams" can use either the old analog or new digital methods of transmitting video. Any cable-ready TV will receive on cable channel 57, which is 421.25 MHz, the most common amateur TV repeater output, and cable channel 60 (439.25 MHz) is the most common repeater input frequency. So, to have a 2-way video conversation, one guy transmits on channel 60, and receives on channel 57, and the other guy does the opposite.