aboulang@bbn.com (Albert Boulanger) (06/28/89)
Undoubtedly due to the increase sunspot activity last week, I was able to pick up some unusually distant TV stations. (See the front cover story of Time this week. The auroral display in March was seen as far as Key West.) I am in the Boston area, and here are some of the stations that I picked up: Ch 13 Maine station Ch 10 WTEN Albany NY (on Ch 19 for some reason) Ch 26 New London (CT?) Ch 31 Vermont Station Ch 41 ? Ch 51 ? Ch 61 ? This was using the antenna that came with the TV. I haven't tried to DX FM stations, but I bet there will be some good listening here. Happy DXing, Albert Boulanger BBN Systems & Technologies Corp. aboulanger@bbn.com
billk@hpsad.HP.COM (Bill Katz) (06/30/89)
Your reception of "WTEN", channel ten from Albany, NY on channel 19 was no fluke; However it was really WCDC, channel 19. WCDC is located on Mount Greylock in Adams MA (Near the notheast corner of the state, and also the highest elevation in MA, 3491'). WCDC is owned by the the people who own channel 10, and always broadcasts the same material. It isn't just a small translator, but a full-fledged station, with about 20KW out (about 200KW ERP). And Mt. Greylock is an excellent VHF location... A group I've been associated with for many years uses this as the site for contesting the ARRL VHF and UHF contests every summer, and we've set overall records many times from that spot. Of course now that I live in California, I don't get back for radio contests quite as often. Bill Katz Hewlett-Packard e-mail: billk@hpsad.hp.com Signal Analysis Division 1212 Vally House Dr. Rohnert Park, CA 94928
wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) (07/04/89)
My besxt TV DX experience was back in the spring of 1972, watching the NBC Mystery Movie (Columbo) on what I thought was channel 3, WKYC, in Cleveland; I live/lived just outside of Akron, Ohio, which is about 20 miles from Cleveland. Good reception on channel 3 at that distance is not unexpected. I switched the TV on at about 8:00 pm just as the Mystery Movie was starting and thought nothing more of it until the station broke from the network at about 20 minutes after to do local commercials. It struck me as odd that I had never heard of any of the stores mentioned in the commercials. Later on, the station ID'ed itself as (I think) WKEA, Tulsa OK, channel 2! What had happened is that somebody had bumped the fine tuning so that the set, a portable Magnavox B&W, was actually picking up 2 when the dial said 3. The only antenna was about a 0.75 meter single rabbit ear on the back of the set, and reception was asbolutely letter perfect. Suddenly at about 50 minutes into the movie, the reception from Tulsa stopped almost as if somebody had turned off a switch. I think the effect was sporadic E skip or ducting, which occurs mainly in the spring and early fall seasons. Apparenlty temperature inversions can create air layers with the correct RF dielectric characteristics to serve as VHF waveguides of a sort. In the case of the TV skip, it was quite dramatic. The second best VHF DX I heard was when a guy with a 5 watt 2 meter rig in a car talked into the Cuyaghoga Falls W8VPV repeater from Buffalo NY; that's around 300 mi, I think. That was just after Christmas, an unusual time for that sort of skip. My own best DX was using a cheap car CB with a short whip antenna. I was on I-71 near Mansfield, OH. The radio was acting up, so I tuned to ch. 11, which as a popular local channel. I asked for a radio check, and a person in Cincinatti replied. That was a couple hundred mile QSO, but then 27 MHz doesn't exactly qualify as VHF either. Bill wtm@impulse.UUCP
dya@unccvax.UUCP (York David Anthony @ WKTD, Wilmington, NC) (07/05/89)
In article <1674@neoucom.UUCP>, wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) writes: > My besxt TV DX experience was back in the spring of 1972, watching > the NBC Mystery Movie (Columbo) on what I thought was channel 3, > WKYC, in Cleveland; I live/lived just outside of Akron, Ohio, which This is pretty decent. My experiences with TV DX are fairly rare, though I have had some strange occurrences with "ducting" at VHF. Probably the most predictable (for us) is KPRC Houston, which (with depressing regularity) interferes with our enjoyment of WFMY-TV Greensboro. There are periods of up to 5 minutes at a time where the video of KPRC completely overtakes that of WFMY; however, the aural carrier of KPRC never makes it. Much more rare are observations on channel 3. However, lately we've seen a channel 3 with the same offset as WBTV causing great interference; we know it is an NBC affiliate in the same or Central time zone. This narrows down the choices considerably. During the skip season, putting the TV set on 4,5,or 6 (on which there are no local stations) doesn't seem to pull in anything, except once we saw some strange Spanish-speaking program in black-and-white, shot with aincent image orthicon cameras (on channel 6) . My wife claims to have heard WEZC Charlotte, NC (104.7 mHz) for about 15 minutes, while stopped at a rest area on I-95 around Richmond, VA. Once, some guy called me from Metter, GA (when I worked at WPEG Concord, NC) with a request, though I don't know that is authentic... Band I skip is common. Anyone have any 174-216 mHz or 470 mHz + TV DX? I've never observed any... York David Anthony DataSpan, Inc
cmoore@oahu.prime.com (Chris Moore) (07/05/89)
Speaking of TV and FM DX'ing, I've got a couple of good ones. Around 1975, a friend of mine got a Florida channel 2 station for about 20 minutes or so. Pretty good considering we were in southern RI. Also, for FM DX'ing, a couple of year's ago, I was at another friend's house who has a scanner. The scanner picked up a police dept. in Texas. What was really wild about that one, was that the town in Texas was having a tornado at the time and tracking the funnel via radio. It was really wild! It only lasted about 5 minutes though. Chris Moore Hardware Engineer CV/Pr1me Computer, Inc. cmoore@oahu.prime.com My opinions are my own, not Prime's
hakanl@loglule.se (H}kan Lennest}l) (07/06/89)
Yes ! Band I skip is pretty common, at least during the summer months here in northern Scandinavia. Here in Lule} is it possible to see Icelandic TV on channel 3 and 4, almost on a regular bases. So far this season it has happened to me (just by chance) a couple of times. It occurs, normally, late at night when our national broadcasting company turns their local transmitter off, and when the Icelanders still are transmitting. The quality is, of course, unpredictable and fades up and down. But then the distance is almost 3000 Km... / H}kan
msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) (07/08/89)
I've got a TV DX I'd like to identify. During the last two thunderstorms, I have had interference on Channel 2 (WCBS-TV, NYC) from an unknown signal on 3. When I try to tune in 3, it comes in worse than it does as a shadow on 2. I live in Tenafly, NJ, just over the river from NYC, slightly North of the Bronx. The best ID I could get was that it was broadcasting a baseball game around 8:30-8:45 pm EDT on Friday 7/7/89. I suppose it could be another channel 2. Can anyone identify this? Mark -- Mark Smith | "Be careful when looking into the distance, |All Rights 61 Tenafly Road|that you do not miss what is right under your nose."| Reserved Tenafly,NJ 07670-2643|rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith,msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise.