Amateur television has long used the NTSC (analog) television standards to transmit video and audio. Several years ago, the digital broadcast television transition made higher-quality television signals possible. Can amateurs acquire and use digital television (ATSC or DVB) transmission equipment?
2 Answers
FCC Regulations, Title 97.307(f)(8) says yes, you can transmit with ATSC modulation in the US, BUT you can't use frequencies which match US ATSC channels. You would need to find a receiver (maybe PC controlled?) flexible enough to listen to amateur frequencies.
As to DVB-T or DVD-S, well, they'll work with about 2MHz of bandwidth instead of the 6MHz slice required for ATSC. Again, a flexible receiver is called for.
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$\begingroup$ You have to use 6 MHz to do ATSC? What if you only want to transmit one video stream with <32 Mbit/s? $\endgroup$– GeremiaCommented Jan 9, 2017 at 20:36
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$\begingroup$ Good answer, assuming the US. (ATSC is used in several other countries, where FCC regulations will not apply.) $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 8, 2018 at 19:22
Software defined radios (SDRs) that can transmit can certainly do this. In the GNUradio software, for example, there are blocks for receiving and transmitting ATSC; cf. this blog post for how to receive and decode ATSC with a SDR.