Famicom RF best channels for particular versions & compatible multi-carts.

Started by Nesmaniac, March 05, 2018, 02:33:14 pm

Previous topic - Next topic

Nesmaniac

Today I went through 9 famicoms testing them on a TV through RF & VCR pass thru to get channels 95 and 96 & have discovered some rather interesting things. The 2 HC prefix serial numbered systems (they are the later board revisions with RF connected directly to board) image quality poor on famicom channel 2 setting TV set 96, I mean it was playable & I actually thought the newer 1989 famicoms video was just worse but decided to try channel 1 and 95 and wa-laa looked great like that. I've seen others say the later boards were worse image but I'm thinking they probably didn't switch it to 1 and 95 since 2 and 96 is bearable to the point where one would think it's just a board with more interference. All the H prefix (ribbon cable RF connected boards) worked on channel 2 and 96 setting but not 1 and 95. I wrote a chart of the numbers here as a guideline for others who might be interested. Also the asterisk marked ones do not work the aliexpress 150 in 1 multicart which as you can see by serial numbers just the very early units don't play those. The H2000000 does not but the one I have in the H2400000 does so somewhere between those is where the newer multicart works. I'll be researching the CPU and PPU numbers to try to understand the difference. The older style 64 in 1 multicart worked fine in all the famicoms. Also, use a good shielded Cable short as possible and RF-F coaxial to rca jack. A shielded subwoofer cable of 3' length is great or a high quality audio cable with shielded ground as I was using here I recommend. Using a regular short video cable the image was bouncing all over with lines and such. Also, it don't hurt to use metal polish and cloth to clean the famicom RF port. Basically once these things are figured out they make doing a AV mod a complete waste the RF output looks just as good if done properly & you can keep that famicom all original.










VegaVegas

By writing your post, you probably forgot about Europe completely as one of the major continents. Maybe if you live in North America (if I understood correctly) then you are just lucky that you can play Famicom on a handful of TVs. Those people that live in Europe, Australia and probably all PAL regions are dumped completely and they can never tune any Famicom to their TV using RF and they will never get anything other than a complete mess in the most optimistic scenario. When you tune a PAL TV to channel 95 or 96, you will not get anything at all. AV modding a Famicom Classic console is never a "waste", by using this word this sounds a little selfish and ignorant since AV mod is actually the ONLY option for us to play this console at all

(I didn't even mention PAL people already go through so much hassle to even find a TV that can accept NTSC signal through regular RCA audio-video jacks at all, let alone tuning a Famicom through RF...)

Nesmaniac

Quote from: MaarioS on March 05, 2018, 04:55:35 pm
By writing your post, you probably forgot about Europe completely as one of the major continents. Maybe if you live in North America (if I understood correctly) then you are just lucky that you can play Famicom on a handful of TVs. Those people that live in Europe, Australia and probably all PAL regions are dumped completely and they can never tune any Famicom to their TV using RF and they will never get anything other than a complete mess in the most optimistic scenario. When you tune a PAL TV to channel 95 or 96, you will not get anything at all. AV modding a Famicom Classic console is never a "waste", by using this word this sounds a little selfish and ignorant since AV mod is actually the ONLY option for us to play this console at all

(I didn't even mention PAL people already go through so much hassle to even find a TV that can accept NTSC signal through regular RCA audio-video jacks at all, let alone tuning a Famicom through RF...)


Obviously when you see my chart is all channel 95 and 96 then I'm only speaking of my experience in North America & therefore my test results don't apply to PAL users. So far all the tv's I've tested famicoms on work good through RF on 95 or 96, CRT or HDTV. Quick look at youtube I see some PAL users can get RF working as well (channel 78 I see) but if not AV mod is required for you guys but from my experience with multiple tv's here there's always a way to get famicom to work just as good through RF here in the States. Believe me at first some TV's I thought it was hopeless until using better RF cable. Radio stations strong here at these frequencies so I'm quite amazed to be honest & wanted to share because so many think AV mod is only solution.