Monitoring system for voltage tunable receivers and converters utilizing voltage comparison techniques
First Claim
1. Apparatus for determining at a central location the channel to which a remotely located receiver tunable to a plurality of channels by a tuning voltage has been tuned comprising:
- means for sequentially generating a plurality of digital indications of numbers identifying said channels;
means responsive to said channel number digital indication generating means for sequentially generating a plurality of coded representations of voltages, each said coded representations corresponding to one of said digital indications and being nonlinearly related to said digital indications;
means for sequentially comparing each of said coded representations with the tuning voltage applied to said receiver;
means responsive to said sequentially comparing means for generating a digital code representative of the digital indication corresponding to the coded representation representing a voltage having an amplitude within a predetermined range of amplitudes relative to the amplitude of the tuning voltage applied to said receiver; and
means for transmitting said digital code to the central location.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system for remotely monitoring or determining the channel to which a voltage tunable receiver (or CATV converter) has been tuned includes an encoder for measuring the magnitude of the tuning voltage applied to the tuning section of the receiver and for generating a channel representative digital code in response to the tuning voltage. The digital code thus generated is compatible with remotely located monitoring equipment, and represents the number of the channel to which the receiver is tuned. Since the tuning voltage is not linearly related to the channel number of the station being received, the encoder utilizes a read-only memory or the like for storing a coded representation relating the channel number to the tuning voltage. In a preferred embodiment, the coded representations are sequentially stored as tuning voltage representations in address locations of the memory corresponding to the respective channel numbers. The read-only memory locations are sequentially addressed, and the tuning voltage representations are compared with the amplitude of the tuning voltage currently being applied to the receiver. When the value of the tuning voltage representation equals or exceeds the amplitude of the tuning voltage, the sequential addressing is terminated and the address of the last accessed memory location is stored to provide a coded indication of the channel number of the station being received.
170 Citations
15 Claims
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1. Apparatus for determining at a central location the channel to which a remotely located receiver tunable to a plurality of channels by a tuning voltage has been tuned comprising:
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means for sequentially generating a plurality of digital indications of numbers identifying said channels; means responsive to said channel number digital indication generating means for sequentially generating a plurality of coded representations of voltages, each said coded representations corresponding to one of said digital indications and being nonlinearly related to said digital indications; means for sequentially comparing each of said coded representations with the tuning voltage applied to said receiver; means responsive to said sequentially comparing means for generating a digital code representative of the digital indication corresponding to the coded representation representing a voltage having an amplitude within a predetermined range of amplitudes relative to the amplitude of the tuning voltage applied to said receiver; and means for transmitting said digital code to the central location. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for determining the channel to which a remotely located voltage tunable receiver is tuned comprising the steps of:
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monitoring the amplitude of the tuning voltage applied to the voltage tunable receiver; sequentially generating a plurality of digital indications, each representative of a channel number; generating a coded representation of voltage in response to each channel number digital indication, each coded representation corresponding to a voltage operative to tune said receiver to a respective channel, said coded representations being nonlinearly related to said digital indications; comparing each of said coded representations with the tuning voltage applied to the receiver; generating a digital code representative of the channel to which the receiver is tuned when said coded representation has a predetermined relationship to said tuning voltage; and transmitting an indication of the channel representative digital code to a central location. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
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Specification