Finding a signal

[Jwb577]

I recently purchased an Atari 7800 from Ebay but i'm having troubled trying to tune it into my Samsung series 6 LCD TV, does anyone have any suggestions, hints or tips?

 

Cheers in advance.

[+Mitch]

Are you in the US, Europe or... ?

Does your TV have an analog tuner or digital tuner?

How exactly are you trying to hook it up.

 

Here's a good tutorial.

 

Mitch

[Jwb577]

Are you in the US, Europe or... ?

Does your TV have an analog tuner or digital tuner?

How exactly are you trying to hook it up.

 

Here's a good tutorial.

 

Mitch

 

I'm in Europe, England

I have a digital tuner (I think).

I think the Coaxial (F-type) to Female RCA Adapter is my best option but don't have a Coaxial jack only an Ant in jack?

Edited November 9, 2009 by Jwb577

[Jwb577]

Post corrected.

[+Mitch]

Maybe one of our UK members could chime in, I'm not all that familiar with UK TVs.

Though I do know they sometimes have issues with the auto-tuning feature.

 

Mitch

[Bruce Tomlin]

So the TV is from the UK... but is the 7800 an NTSC or PAL model?

 

And what exactly have you tried and what happened?

Edited November 10, 2009 by Bruce Tomlin

[GroovyBee]

Connect the 7800 to its joystick (left hand port), RF lead and power block and try this :-

 

1) Connect the 7800's RF lead directly to the TV.

 

2) Press the 7800's POWER switch so that the green LED next to it (on the right) is illuminated.

 

3) Select manual tuning for a vacant channel on the TV's remote.

 

4) Set the TV reception signal type to :-

 

PAL-I

 

The "I" might be in the sound part of the tuning menu.

 

5) Set the channel to :-

 

CH36 or 591 MHz

 

These are the same TV channel.

 

6) Store the changes for the TV remote's channel.

 

7) You should see the Asteroids game playing.

 

If :-

 

i) Game appears in black and white - Fine tune the TV channel

ii) Game looks slightly fuzzy - Leave the 7800 powered on for 20 minutes or so and then fine tune it again.

iii) TV shows the blue screen (i.e. no signal) - Reselect the channel on the remote.

 

There is no sound in Asteroid's attract mode until you start playing it.

[Jwb577]

Connect the 7800 to its joystick (left hand port), RF lead and power block and try this :-

 

1) Connect the 7800's RF lead directly to the TV.

 

2) Press the 7800's POWER switch so that the green LED next to it (on the right) is illuminated.

 

3) Select manual tuning for a vacant channel on the TV's remote.

 

4) Set the TV reception signal type to :-

 

PAL-I

 

The "I" might be in the sound part of the tuning menu.

 

5) Set the channel to :-

 

CH36 or 591 MHz

 

These are the same TV channel.

 

6) Store the changes for the TV remote's channel.

 

7) You should see the Asteroids game playing.

 

If :-

 

i) Game appears in black and white - Fine tune the TV channel

ii) Game looks slightly fuzzy - Leave the 7800 powered on for 20 minutes or so and then fine tune it again.

iii) TV shows the blue screen (i.e. no signal) - Reselect the channel on the remote.

 

There is no sound in Asteroid's attract mode until you start playing it.

 

 

Thanks guys - I appreciate all your help and have picture now.

[GroovyBee]

Thanks guys - I appreciate all your help and have picture now.

 

Welcome to the 7800 clan .

[mimo]

always good to see another Brit on the forums, hope you enjoy your stay.

@ GroovyBee, nice guide:thumbsup:

[Jwb577]

always good to see another Brit on the forums, hope you enjoy your stay.

@ GroovyBee, nice guide:thumbsup:

 

Seems my good luck was only short lived, after enjoying 10 mins of Wizards of War I thought I would try Ateriods (built in) but the picture was terrible - I thought once the pic was tuned you could enjoy all games, even more confused now.

[GroovyBee]

Seems my good luck was only short lived, after enjoying 10 mins of Wizards of War I thought I would try Ateriods (built in) but the picture was terrible - I thought once the pic was tuned you could enjoy all games, even more confused now.

 

Do you have any 7800 carts to test it with? Do all your 2600 carts work fine? What do you mean by "terrible"? Do you mean bad colours? Sync problems? Fuzzy picture?

[mimo]

7800 video output can be a bit iffy yo say the least, of about 7 PAL 7800s that I have owned only one had really good video out.

If you can ot is well worth doing an s-video or composite video mod

[gdement]

Yeah, I've had trouble with mine also (NTSC). It works okay on a conventional CRT television, but I thought something was broken when I hooked it up to my TV tuner card in my PC. I could hardly see anything.

 

The signal probably isn't quite "standard", and modern TVs/tuners might be more picky about it.

Edited November 13, 2009 by gdement

[Jwb577]

Seems my good luck was only short lived, after enjoying 10 mins of Wizards of War I thought I would try Ateriods (built in) but the picture was terrible - I thought once the pic was tuned you could enjoy all games, even more confused now.

 

Do you have any 7800 carts to test it with? Do all your 2600 carts work fine? What do you mean by "terrible"? Do you mean bad colours? Sync problems? Fuzzy picture?

 

The picture is really fuzzy and the colour drops in and out, both carts seem to work but with a poor picture. Does this mean I have no option but to try and purchase a cheap CRT TV?

[mimo]

I would certainly try a CRT, I have recently dug up an old 14" Sony CRT for my games room and it is so much better playing old consoles on this than a 19" LCD.

In my experience though, most PAL 7800's give a fuzzy picture, so glad I got my hands on a French RGB Scart 7800, it looks even better than my s-video moded PAL and NTSC 7800's. But even this french console had problems with my LCD, would not work at all with the original Scart lead but worked ok'ish with my STe scart lead, problem was a blue block of colour like an overlay, about 2"deep running across the LCD display:?

[Jwb577]

I would certainly try a CRT, I have recently dug up an old 14" Sony CRT for my games room and it is so much better playing old consoles on this than a 19" LCD.

In my experience though, most PAL 7800's give a fuzzy picture, so glad I got my hands on a French RGB Scart 7800, it looks even better than my s-video moded PAL and NTSC 7800's. But even this french console had problems with my LCD, would not work at all with the original Scart lead but worked ok'ish with my STe scart lead, problem was a blue block of colour like an overlay, about 2"deep running across the LCD display:?

 

I bought myself a cheap CRT TV but still seem to have ghosting and pic quality seems to differ depending on which games I play, any suggestions?

[mimo]

I would certainly try a CRT, I have recently dug up an old 14" Sony CRT for my games room and it is so much better playing old consoles on this than a 19" LCD.

In my experience though, most PAL 7800's give a fuzzy picture, so glad I got my hands on a French RGB Scart 7800, it looks even better than my s-video moded PAL and NTSC 7800's. But even this french console had problems with my LCD, would not work at all with the original Scart lead but worked ok'ish with my STe scart lead, problem was a blue block of colour like an overlay, about 2"deep running across the LCD display:?

 

I bought myself a cheap CRT TV but still seem to have ghosting and pic quality seems to differ depending on which games I play, any suggestions?

 

you could try running it through a VCR first if you still have one. Other than that and making sure all your contacts are clean, maybe try a different rf cable.

Unfortunately the PAL UK 7800's do have horrible rf output, thats why I have video modded or bought French systems.

The 7800 is a great system with some awesome titles, especially the home brew stuff. Just a shame the video looks so bad

[Jwb577]

I would certainly try a CRT, I have recently dug up an old 14" Sony CRT for my games room and it is so much better playing old consoles on this than a 19" LCD.

In my experience though, most PAL 7800's give a fuzzy picture, so glad I got my hands on a French RGB Scart 7800, it looks even better than my s-video moded PAL and NTSC 7800's. But even this french console had problems with my LCD, would not work at all with the original Scart lead but worked ok'ish with my STe scart lead, problem was a blue block of colour like an overlay, about 2"deep running across the LCD display:?

 

I bought myself a cheap CRT TV but still seem to have ghosting and pic quality seems to differ depending on which games I play, any suggestions?

 

you could try running it through a VCR first if you still have one. Other than that and making sure all your contacts are clean, maybe try a different rf cable.

Unfortunately the PAL UK 7800's do have horrible rf output, thats why I have video modded or bought French systems.

The 7800 is a great system with some awesome titles, especially the home brew stuff. Just a shame the video looks so bad

 

 

Are there different verions of RF leads or do you mean just an alternative to the one i'm trying at present?

[mimo]

Just try an alternative one if you have one available.