Playing my Color TV Game 15 on an American television

[PatMan33]

Hello, I was wondering if anyone here could help me out. I am trying to get my Color TV Game 15 to work on an American television set. Are there any RF adapters I can buy to make this work?

I have tried plugging it into my Famicom adapter (Using a male-male adapter) but it did not seem to work. Can anyone offer me some help with this?

Thank you for your time!

[133MHz]

The problem could be that those didn't use an automatic RF switch like the Famicom/NES, instead, they used the classic COMPUTER GAME/TV switch, the one with the slider. The signal coming from the TV Game is not strong enough to activate the switching circuitry inside the NES RF switch and so the TV Game signal never reaches the TV.

You need one of those manual RF switches, but I prefer a 'female RCA - male F connector' adapter for maximum picture quality (obtainable from RF of course). You plug this into the end of the RF cable coming from the TV Game and then into the aerial socket on the back of your TV set. I assume if you play Famicom you already know how to deal with NTSC-J frequencies, so you're good to go

Picture of the connector

[PatMan33]

Thank you so much, I was told this place is THE place to find answers for these things. Looks like they were right.

[Doc]

ooo, who said this?

[PatMan33]

The guy who sold me the Color TV Game over on eBay. We were not sure how to solve the problem and he directed me here.

Lucky for me, I had used your resources before when I was researching the Famicom Disk System so I knew it would be worth a try since your other archives are full of really good info.

[PatMan33]

UPDATE

Alright, I went out and purchased a RCA - F adapter but unfortunately it did not work. Could I have done something wrong or is the signal coming from the Color TV Game not the kind of signal I think it is?

At the moment I'm not quite sure how to progress.

[133MHz]

Does the TV Game have a channel switch? Have you tried flipping it and tuning the common Famicom channels?

[kite200]

channel 95-98 is where it should show up, make sure you are viewing those

[vealchop]

How much did you get it for? And did you get CTG-15V or CTG-15S? CTG-15S seems to be a bit more rare. I think the difference is one of the versions you can remove the paddles and connect an AC adapter, the other one has built in paddles and runs on batteries only. I finally got my CTG-15S a few months ago.

[PatMan33]

Okay, I played around with the channel switch on the back of the console. On channel 96 and 97 (Depending on which channel the switch is on) I can barely make out the scores in the top left and right and some other bits of the playing field. So I've got a lock on the channel but the image is still shoddy. I don't know what kind of advice you could give me for the bad image but if you have anything I'll take it.

Also I have the CTG-15S and I got it for a little under one hundred USD.

[133MHz]

I don't know if you feel comfortable doing this, but I would turn on the TV Game, tune the TV to the channel it looks the best, then open the TV Game, remove the metal shield from the RF modulator, mark the positions of the tuning coils with a marker so I can return to the original settings if I make things worse, then tweak them a little with a small screwdriver (preferably a plastic one) and watch the TV screen. By altering the tuning coils you are changing the output frequency so if you're lucky (and patient) maybe you can make it work on an American TV.

[PatMan33]

I would not mind doing that one bit.

It will be a fun little diversion to take my mind off of the real world.

[133MHz]

Cool! Just be careful and mark everything so you can return if you make it worse. If you can take high res pictures of the inside (system and RF modulator) I can take a look and help you.

[PatMan33]

Okay pictures! I got it from three angles.

I poked around a bit but did not see any shield that looked like it could remove without actually tearing something off of the board itself. It actually looks like they made the board with access to the RF frequency tuning screws built into the modulator shields.

At least, that is what I see, take a look and tell me if we are seeing the same thing. I'm no expert with this stuff so I could be way off.

They are big so I guess I'll slap down a 56k warning.

Image 1
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Image 3

[kite200]

try on a different tv.


not all brands will work well