Thread  RSS The Max Headroom Incident



# 11643 9 years ago on Mon, Jan 18 2016 at 6:58 pm

First, welcome back Doitsujin yay It's been a while.

The person who pulled off this (rather impressive) prank most likely had knowledge of how to operate a television transmitter and access to the equipment.

Because of the poor audio, he was either intentionally distorting it (by letting the video signal bleed in) or he didn't have all of the proper equipment to transmit clean audio or filter the video signal. (I'll have to ask Nitro to chime in one this aspect)

The other thing is that in order not to be caught, he must have been very close to the receiving antennas (which I assume were on top of the Hancock building, man I want to go to Chicago some time) because proximity must have been a factor unless he had more electricity than the average household or apartment would.

"Dangerous toys are fun, but you could get hurt!"

# 11654 9 years ago on Mon, Jan 18 2016 at 11:55 pm

Welcome back, Doitsujin! bouncy

When I was a kid, my grandpa used to have a really big antenna on the top of his house that could pick up Chicago TV stations. Surely, if he was watching at the time, he would have seen this happen. What a great story it would have made around the holidays to talk about how he saw Max Headroom's butt while watching Dr. Who, which he did all the time.

EDIT: Whoops, it was Cleveland WKYC that we could pick up at his house, not Chicago undecided Maybe he could pick up Chicago, but I don't know.

(This post was edited 9 years ago on Monday, January 18th, 2016 at 11:58 pm)

Waff-O! waffle

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# 11656 9 years ago on Tue, Jan 19 2016 at 12:35 am

On Tuesday, January 19th, 2016 at 4:55 am, Miroku said:

talk about how he saw Max Headroom's butt while watching Dr. Who, which he did all the time.

He saw Max Headroom's butt on TV all the time while watching Dr. Who?

As for DX'ing TV signals (receiving long distance), Chicago is probably too far away. VHF and UHF typically require line of sight to the transmitter tower for reception, with the noteable exception of tropospheric ducting. While shortwave signals usually bounce off the ionosphere, the frequencies used for TV signals (analog or digital) don't do that.

As for Wolfwood's inquiry, I would say that the prankster absolutely had to be in one of the buildings nearby in order to reach the receiving antennas of the television station in order to hijack the signal. He wasn't overriding or overpowering the transmitter (that would have been impossible to do without being caught right away because the amount of power required would knock out every nearby frequency for blocks unless your transmitter was on a tower) but hijacking the relay feed. This is unlike the Captain Midnight hijacking, where, in that case, the pirate transmitter absolutely had to overpower HBO's uplink transmitter.

73's, KD8FUD

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# 11738 9 years ago on Wed, Jan 20 2016 at 7:45 am

On Monday, January 18th, 2016 at 2:20 am, Helena said:

He's a cheeky fellow, he is! I'd watch the whole thing butt I'd rather watch a brand spanking new video instead. You know, just for bun.

I see what you did there raspberry

Back then, seeing someone's backside on live TV was a big deal. Nowadays, someone can be practically naked and no one bats an eye.

Whoever that guy is must have a hard time keeping his mouth shut about it since he still hasn't ever been caught!

The blue sky is infinitely high, crystal clear...that's what the world should be...a world of infinite possibilities, laid before us, crystal clear"

# 11746 9 years ago on Wed, Jan 20 2016 at 3:56 pm

(Welcome back, too, Miroku and Wolfwood! Its been a while! yay )

On Wednesday, January 20th, 2016 at 12:45 pm, KarmaJolt said:

Whoever that guy is must have a hard time keeping his mouth shut about it since he still hasn't ever been caught!

This is exactly my line of thought as well. As a matter of fact, its amazing that whoever did this kept quiet about it all the time. I mean, in November of next year, it will be 30 years...

(This post was edited 9 years ago on Wednesday, January 20th, 2016 at 3:57 pm)


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