Ranger,
Austria uses PAL (Phase Alternation by Line) systems B/G (B on VHF, G on UHF). This is the closest that there is to a common European standard, being used in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, The Netherlands, and many other places. Even the channel assignments are the same in many countries, e.g. Austrian ch. 2 is the same as German ch. 2. There are a few exceptions, e.g. Italy had its own peculiar channel assignments.
The most notable exception to the PAL B/G system is France, which uses SECAM system L (SEquential Couleur A Memoire). Apart from the different color-encoding method, system L differs from B/G in having positive video modulation and AM sound instead of the more usual negative video and FM sound.
A lot of the former Iron-Curtain countries also used SECAM but with systems D and K, which have different bandwidths and carrier spacings. I believe some of those countries have since adopted PAL B/G since the fall of the USSR, which also used SECAM D/K (and presumably still does?).
The UK and Ireland use PAL system I, which is similar to G but with a different video bandwidth and video/audio spacing. Hence when the Dutch signals roll in on tropospheric ducting here, we don't get any sound.
A similar problem with VCRs occurred here a few years ago with the opening of a new network (confusingly called "Channel 5", although it is not and is never likly to be on the real ch.5 - VHF TV closed here in 1985!).
When our UHF TV network was planned in the 1960s, a small section in the middle was left unallocated. As a result, practically all VCRs (and video games, satellite boxes etc.) are factory preset to ch. 36. The new "5" network was assigned ch. 36 in some parts of the country, and a condition of the licensing was that if anyone reported problems they were obliged to send somebody around to the house, for free, to re-tune the affected equipment.
