eli5 Why does the TV signal get disrupted on ferryboats while the captain is broadcasting a message? Is it to get people’s attention or it is some technical thing with ferryboats?
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Never seen that personally, what type of disruption is it?
It is entirely possible that they are doing this deliberately, just like you say they want to get peoples attention as what they say might be very important. Turning off the TVs make people more likely to pay attention to the announcement. However it is still possible that it is accidental.
If you put a transmitting antenna next to a receiving antenna it is very easy to disrupt the receiving signal even if you are transmitting on a different frequency. This is because you are overpowering the pre-amplifier in the receiver so it will just distort the signal. Even if there are filters before the pre-amplifier to limit the frequencies of the signals it receives these filters only reduce the power of the unwanted signals, but if they are at very high power to start with it is not enough. And a lot of the intercom radio systems tends to be quite close to the TV reception frequencies which does not make it easy for a filter to separate them.
You can be pretty sure it’s for attention. With tech and systems from a few decades ago, it would very likely have been a limitation. But with todays tech, I don’t see a reason why a modern system wouldn’t be able to do both at the same time. So it’s safe to say: it’s for attention.
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