[TriLUG] OT: Way Way OT: running cable TV over Fiber Optics, possible?

[Brian Henning]

> would be like trying to hook your CD player up to a light bulb.

Which actually works.  Provided your transmitter ("light bulb") and 
receiver (photocell, etc) is capable of the bandwidth.  Tungsten 
filament?  No (well, yes, to a degree...for a nice "warm" sound).  LED? 
  Quite possibly.  Light is electromagnetic radiation just like "radio" 
waves (wave/particle duality theory aside).  Just like you can modulate 
a 105-MHz FM-band radio wave to carry sound (or other information), you 
can similarly modulate a 4.6x10^14-Hz (that's 460 Terahertz, kids! 
Microwave radiation is commonly in the 2-4 Gigahertz range) signal (red 
light, 650 nm [in a vacuum, for hair-splitters]) to carry sound, or even 
RF-band information.  The key is in the modulator and demodulator at 
either end of the transmission medium.

Theoretically.

Practically, such devices may or may not exist (sure, for AF, not so 
sure for RF), and if they do exist, may be prohibitively expensive.

But the point remains, any signal you can send over coax, you can 
modulate and send with light, given the right circuitry.

*waits to be thwapped with physics books*
~Brian