VHF TV.

[colly0410]

Was the UK the first country to stop using the VHF band for TV broadcasting? VHF TV officially ended in Jan 1985, but de facto ended in the mid 1970's as most people went over to colour at UHF, & most of those on black & white had UHF 625 sets. 
 
Were there any countries that didn't at one time use VHF for TV broadcasting?  

[Murphyv310]

Most likely yes.
There were many countries that took the take up of TV much later than us so the sensible way would have been UHF.
In the UK there were still some pockets that could not receive UHF even after the 405 line switch off, especially in valleys and areas up here in Scotland, I remember one customer's Philips 210 being uplifted in January 85 as she lost BBC1 on channel 3 her only receivable channel. She lived six miles from Straiton on the road to the Galloway hills.

[Mike Watterson]

I think UK may have been first, because of 405, others used 525 or 625 on VHF.
Smaller countries with one or two channels only often used VHF Band III, some using Band I too for 625.
I think Japan and Australia used part of Band II for TV? (Japan Radio is 76 to 90)

[Synchrodyne]

No cases come to mind where analogue TV broadcasts were started on UHF, with none on VHF.  There might have been one or two, perhaps very small countries or territories.  Generally though, even for late starters, the VHF channels were preferred if still available.

Neither can I think of anywhere other than the UK where the VHF TV channels, having been used, were abandoned in their entirety during the analogue era and long before digital transmissions were on the horizon.

Parts of Band II were used for analogue TV broadcasting in Russia and Eastern Europe, Japan and Australia.  In the Australian case, the Band II channels were progressively abandoned once FM broadcasting started.

Cheers,

Steve

[Mike Watterson]

No cases come to mind where analogue TV broadcasts were started on UHF, with none on VHF.

Maybe South Africa? They were almost the last to start TV. No Band I for sure.
Band I 625 only ended here in Ireland in 1999, started in 1962. The Band III 405 in 1985 and Band III 625 in 2012.

[Synchrodyne]

South Africa did use Band III.  In fact, it was an upwardly extended Band III, to 254 MHz, but still fully in the VHF range.

Cheers,

Steve P.

[Kan_turk]

There seems to be a perception in some circles that UHF is somehow superior to VHF for TV and that it was/is something to aspire to. - not so, in fact the reverse is the case as any study of coverage versus transmitter power (& electrical power consumption) will reveal.  There also appears to be an idea that use of VHF or UHF is, in some way, related to line standard - it is not.

Broadcasters only moved to UHF for one of two reasons:

1.  When they ran out of VHF spectrum and needed to add more channels (most countries)
or
2.  Because VHF spectrum was already occupied by legacy transmissions (Britain &France)(405 line in the British case and  .....819 line in the French case)

So the natural progression was to start with Band 1 followed by Band 3 and then UHF only when Bands 1 and 3 were full.
The use of Band 1 was later discontinued because of Co-channel interference and only 3 channels available (assuming 7 or 8 MHz channels.  This situation pertained until analogue switch-off although most countries have specified both Band 3 and UHF for DTT (eg Australia) and most DTT boxes can handle Band 3 natively (some local 'nobbled' versions have been restricted to UHF but these are in a minority)

[colly0410]

My Parents had a Sony KV 1800 colour TV, it had a blanking plate where a VHF tuner would have been. I'm presuming that for VHF/UHF countries (e.g. Ireland) they would have just bunged a VHF tuner in & charged a few punts/euro's more for it. Did people near the border have VHF/UHF sets?

[Kan_turk]

As the standard version worldwide would have VHF & UHF tuners fitted by default there was likely no price differential as typically when the VHF tuner was removed an IF amplifier had to be added in order to make up the gain provided by the VHF tuner when switched to UHF

[Terry]

Yes, and not just near the border.

In the Dublin area, they pointed the aerials across the Irish Sea to transmitters in Wales.

In 1961, my Scout Troop spent summer camp in the village of Mornington at the mouth of the Boyne, about half way between Dublin and Belfast. The local Bush dealer in town sold the TV96, I noted, the fringe area version of the TV95 I was used to back home. Aerials pointed north.

I'd had occasion to visit the village Post Office a few times while we were there and went in the last day before we left.

The little old lady who ran it asked "Could I be after asking you something?" "Yes", said I. "How much are you after paying for the television licence in England?" she asked.

"£4," I replied, "and £1 for the wireless licence."

"Ah!" she said, "We don't have the television licence and we're only after paying the seventeen shillings and sixpence for the wireless licence."

When I left, she was looking very pleased with herself. But this was, of course, before Telefis Eireann started transmissions. That was set to happen the following January.

The following day we spent a couple of hours in Dublin on our way to the ferry, and the evening papers were on sale everywhere, bold headlines proclaiming '£4 TELEVISION LICENCE FROM JANUARY - WIRELESS LICENCE UP TO £1'.

I wish I could have seen the expression on that woman's face back up the coast!