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WHAT IS THE MOST DISTANT TV SIGNAL YOU EVER TUNED IN?
- Thread starter cheapman
- Start date
UHF is a strange monster. Even though it requires higher power levels for roughly the same coverage area as VHF would get with lesser amounts, it seems to skip for no reason whatsoever from time to time. I'm sure it has to do with some sort of atmospheric condition(s), but what that (or those) may be, I couldn't tell you.cdk said:Beats me...I got it for about 2 minutes, just was able to see enough to get Charlotte and NBC. Now it's even stranger to me...Kevin Lagasse said:cdk said:How was that possible? Charlotte's NBC affiliate is UHF channel 36 (today it's WCNC-TV). E-skip usually works best on VHF channels 2 to 6.
S
Sp1c3run
Guest
Ok, I just have to mention way back in the 60s, I was in Corpus Christi and watched with amazement as Channel 2 came in from Los Angelos for 30 minutes around 6am in the morning.....super clear till it faded out. I've never received anything like that again from over the Rocky Mountains.
E-skip is tough in Phoenix for some reason, although for me it's probably because of how close I am to the South Mountain tower farm (about 5-6 miles east). Being in an apartment building covered by stucco and chicken wire (which is a 20 dB attenuator or thereabouts) certainly doesn't help.The best I've done here is KREM-TV 2 Spokane, WA a couple of years ago, on a portable TV with rabbit ears. That's about 1400 miles from Phoenix.cdk said:
K
KML0224
Guest
WUND-TV (PBS) channel 2 of Columbia, NC is the North Carolina station. I've picked up WCBD-TV here in central Connecticut. I've picked up WSAV-TV in Old Orchard Beach, ME in the mid-1980s.JPKirby said:
When I was about 7 or 8, I can remember living in Warrenton, NC and picking up the following channels in my family's basement:2 - WFMY Greensboro3 - WWAY Wilmington or WTKR Norfolk6 - WECT Wilmington7 - WITN Washington, NC9 - WNCT Greenville10 - WAVY Portsmouth12 - WCTI New Bern13 - WSET LynchburgThis was in addition to getting the much more clearer WRAL and WTVD in Raleigh and Durham respectively.
B
BoardmanDJ
Guest
In Lincoln Nebraska I can sometimes get stations from Oklahoma. Had some from Arkansas a couple of summers ago. The best ever was one night in Southwest Nebraska. I literally had something coming in on every channel from 2-68. When I got cable, it was not unusual for our cable system to air Channel 11 in Sioux Falls on Channel 4.Channel 10/11 out of Lincoln/Grand Island had a repeater on channel 4 locally. I assume we picke dupa relay from channel 11 in Grand Island. That would account for picking up channel 11 in Sioux Falls after Grand Island signed off.I really dislike stations leaving their transmitters online, even after sign off now. Ruins some DX opportunites.
It probably was channel 5. Channel 4 from Beaumont usually came in pretty clear at night.Kevin Lagasse said:
The three (common) modes of TV propagation
Time to jump in here with a little TV DX tutorial...There are three common modes by which TV signals are received.There's "groundwave", which is just good old line-of-sight propagation straight from the transmitting antenna to your TV. Groundwave, obviously, works on all TV channels, and is generally good for as far as you have line of sight - up to 150 miles under the very best circumstances, more commonly 75-80 miles. (Here in Rochester NY I have solid groundwave signals to Buffalo, 65-70 miles west, and Syracuse, 75 miles east.)There's "tropospheric ducting," which essentially creates a tunnel (or "duct," if you prefer) through the atmosphere that can carry signals up to 800 miles or so. (There's also "tropospheric enhancement," which can significanly improve normal groundwave propagation over shorter distances.)"Trop" is most common on the UHF TV dial, but also appears at FM and high-band VHF frequencies. It is especially common in coastal areas and can be easily disrupted by geography. Here in Rochester, it's not at all uncommon to have ducting up the St. Lawrence River to the northeast, bringing clear signals in from Ottawa and Montreal. A somewhat less common duct is down to Scranton and Philadelphia, to the southeast. It's highly uncommon to have any ducting over the mountains to the south and southwest. To some extent, trop can be predicted. Bill Hepburn, a Canadian meteorologist, posts daily maps with tropo forecasts at http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html.Then there's E-skip, which produces the most dramatic TV DX. When E-skip hits, low-band VHF TV signals and FM signals (and, under EXTREMELY rare conditions, high-band VHF TV) essentially reflect off a mirrorlike layer in the ionosphere, traveling anywhere from 900-1700 miles. (In very rare cases, signals can take two hops off the E-layer, doubling that distance, but this is highly unusual.)E-skip is most common in the late spring and early summer, though there's sometimes a short E-skip season right around Christmas. It's essentially impossible to predict, though in recent years the advent of e-mail lists for TV and FM DXers has at least made it possible to spread news of an E-skip opening instantaneously. Once you've logged most of the "usual" candidates for E-skip in your area, it's as much of a challenge - if not more so - to log the very SHORT skip as to log the very LONG distances. So for instance, my "usual" E-skip zone starts up in Newfoundland, runs through a big empty stretch of the North Atlantic, hits most of Florida (my two most common catches here are WESH 2 in Daytona Beach and WEDU 3 in Tampa), crosses Louisiana, then comes up through eastern Oklahoma and into eastern Nebraska and the Dakotas. Plot that on a map, and you have a fuzzy ring about 1200 miles in radius. I would be every bit as excited - if not more so - to log 3 Cuba, 2/5 Atlanta, 2/4/5 St. Louis, 5 Des Moines or 2/4/5 Minneapolis-St. Paul, all just a bit too close to be common E-skip targets, as I would be to log Houston, San Antonio or Denver, which are all just a bit too far for normal one-skip E.(Even more so, now that the clock is running out on analog TV E-skip, which will go away - at least for U.S. targets - when analog TV signs off here in 2009.)Lots and lots and lots of information about TV and FM DX is available from the Worldwide TV-FM DX Association (WTFDA) at http://www.anarc.org/wtfda/.
Time to jump in here with a little TV DX tutorial...There are three common modes by which TV signals are received.There's "groundwave", which is just good old line-of-sight propagation straight from the transmitting antenna to your TV. Groundwave, obviously, works on all TV channels, and is generally good for as far as you have line of sight - up to 150 miles under the very best circumstances, more commonly 75-80 miles. (Here in Rochester NY I have solid groundwave signals to Buffalo, 65-70 miles west, and Syracuse, 75 miles east.)There's "tropospheric ducting," which essentially creates a tunnel (or "duct," if you prefer) through the atmosphere that can carry signals up to 800 miles or so. (There's also "tropospheric enhancement," which can significanly improve normal groundwave propagation over shorter distances.)"Trop" is most common on the UHF TV dial, but also appears at FM and high-band VHF frequencies. It is especially common in coastal areas and can be easily disrupted by geography. Here in Rochester, it's not at all uncommon to have ducting up the St. Lawrence River to the northeast, bringing clear signals in from Ottawa and Montreal. A somewhat less common duct is down to Scranton and Philadelphia, to the southeast. It's highly uncommon to have any ducting over the mountains to the south and southwest. To some extent, trop can be predicted. Bill Hepburn, a Canadian meteorologist, posts daily maps with tropo forecasts at http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html.Then there's E-skip, which produces the most dramatic TV DX. When E-skip hits, low-band VHF TV signals and FM signals (and, under EXTREMELY rare conditions, high-band VHF TV) essentially reflect off a mirrorlike layer in the ionosphere, traveling anywhere from 900-1700 miles. (In very rare cases, signals can take two hops off the E-layer, doubling that distance, but this is highly unusual.)E-skip is most common in the late spring and early summer, though there's sometimes a short E-skip season right around Christmas. It's essentially impossible to predict, though in recent years the advent of e-mail lists for TV and FM DXers has at least made it possible to spread news of an E-skip opening instantaneously. Once you've logged most of the "usual" candidates for E-skip in your area, it's as much of a challenge - if not more so - to log the very SHORT skip as to log the very LONG distances. So for instance, my "usual" E-skip zone starts up in Newfoundland, runs through a big empty stretch of the North Atlantic, hits most of Florida (my two most common catches here are WESH 2 in Daytona Beach and WEDU 3 in Tampa), crosses Louisiana, then comes up through eastern Oklahoma and into eastern Nebraska and the Dakotas. Plot that on a map, and you have a fuzzy ring about 1200 miles in radius. I would be every bit as excited - if not more so - to log 3 Cuba, 2/5 Atlanta, 2/4/5 St. Louis, 5 Des Moines or 2/4/5 Minneapolis-St. Paul, all just a bit too close to be common E-skip targets, as I would be to log Houston, San Antonio or Denver, which are all just a bit too far for normal one-skip E.(Even more so, now that the clock is running out on analog TV E-skip, which will go away - at least for U.S. targets - when analog TV signs off here in 2009.)Lots and lots and lots of information about TV and FM DX is available from the Worldwide TV-FM DX Association (WTFDA) at http://www.anarc.org/wtfda/.
Ah, what memories!If we're talking about E-skip..... here's my longest catches 2 KUSD-TV Vermillion, South Dakota (1980, Weymouth, MA) Seen under local WGBH-2 (QSL) 3 KMTV Omaha, Nebraska (1980, Weymouth, MA) A very clean color signal at 2:00 AM! (QSL) 3 KGLO-TV Mason City, Iowa (1972, East Wakefield, NH) LOCAL QUALITY for two hours! 4 WCCO-TV Minneapolis, Minnesota (1972, East Wakefield, NH) STRONG, able to watch a full episode of "All In The Family" (and then some!) (QSL) 5 WOI-TV Ames, Iowa (1972, East Wakefield, NH) Commercial ABC affiliate from a University station. LOCAL! 6 WOC-TV Davenport, Iowa (1972, East Wakefield, NH) Seen over local WCSH-61972 and 1980 must be my best years for skip! Hope I can get a few more states BEFORE NTSC goes away.73,Pete (K1XRB)
H
harrisburgpatv
Guest
While in Ocean City, MD, in 1998, I was on the 12th floor of a hotel. I had my pocket TV with me, pointed it towards the ocean, and couldn't BELIEVE what I picked up. From what I can remember, WABC-TV from NY, WTNH-TV from New Haven CT, and WLNY-55 from Long Island..
Hi everyone:
Cheers Pat
I once had a similar experience around the same time you did with another PBS affiliate. This one was with then (and maybe still now?) KTNE channel 13 out of Alliance, NE. I was living with my parents here in Denver, Colorado watching (or trying to watch) KRDO 13, the local ABC affiliate out of Colorado Springs as I was watching their morning M-F daytime morning lineup as it was carrying a show which then-affiliate KUSA 9 was not clearing.Anyhow, sometime in the middle of a commercial break during an (I think it was) Andy Griffith rerun (In small towns like Colorado Springs, it's not all that surprising EVEN TODAY to see the network affiliates carrying old shows like Andy Griffith, though with more syndie fare available, it's becoming less and less prevelent than in years past), KRDO faded out. The signal then began to fluctuate. I thought it was just KRDO coming back. But that's when I got the shock of my life.The picture that had appeared next was a promo for some show on nature. I couldn't immediately tell what station I was receiving at this moment because the signal momentarily faded just before they showed when the program was going to be on as of course that's when they also announce what station you're tuned into.Anyhow, it reached its peak when they were about to start their next program and the announcer said something like You're watching KTNE Channel 13, Alliance, NE. Heck, I didn't even need the announcer to confirm what station I was watching because the picture was so crisp and clear, you can even see the COL in fine print (I was watching on a 5" Portable TV at the time).Needless to say, and sadly, I didn't think about sending the station a signal report as...well...I just didn't know about stuff like that back then. So I dismissed it as a fluke.Though I did try the same thing with Channel 11 to see if I could pull in Channel 11 out of Kearney, NE even both the Kearney, NE station and KKTV 11 out of Colorado Springs are CBS affiliates. But no luck.cheapman said:
Cheers PatHi everyone:
Josh C. said:UHF is a strange monster. Even though it requires higher power levels for roughly the same coverage area as VHF would get with lesser amounts, it seems to skip for no reason whatsoever from time to time. I'm sure it has to do with some sort of atmospheric condition(s), but what that (or those) may be, I couldn't tell you.cdk said:It could also be that he picked up some propogating VHF translator station for WCNC as well. Hey CDK, what channel (if you recall) in Phoneix were you watching when you picked this up?Just curiousKevin Lagasse said:cdk said:
Hi everyone:Just an addendum to my first post in this thread....It should be noted though that, contrary to what some in the general mainstream public might consider to be popular belief, it's not all that uncommon to pick up KKTV 11 and KRDO 13 with a rooftop antenna or even a cheap set of rabbit ears from the heart of Denver. Is is however rather uncommon to pick up KOAA 5/30, KTSC 8/15 (More on this in a moment), KXRM 21, and KXTU 57 from the heart of Denver though (But you can get 'em if you live in the right spot in the southern suburbs of the city).The reason why I say you can't really pick up KOAA 5/30 and KTSC 8/15 from the heart of Denver is because both stations are on UHF (KOAA on 30, KTSC on 15) in Colorado Springs, but they're on VHF down in Pueblo (KOAA on 5, KTSC on 8). Plus, KTSC is a part of Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting, which is run out of KRMA 6 here in Denver, so what you see on KTSC 8/15, you see on KRMA 6 anyway.KXRM 21 and KXTU 57 are just too far south for anyone in Denver (again unless you live in the southern suburbs of the city) to pick up (Someone correct me on this, but I do believe their tower is atop Cheyenne Mountain if I'm not mistaken)This is all because there are UHFs here in Denver that (essentially) block KTSC, KXRM and KOAA from coming in. They are...KTFD 14 (TeleFutura)KTVD 20 (UPN - Soon to be [expectantly, though not yet officially] MyNetwork TV)KDVR 31 (FOX)With all that all said....Back to our regular program. Cheers Pat
Cheers PatThat, plus the fact that 30 and 15 wouldn't even come in in Denver, even if there were no local channels surrounding them -- KOAA and KTSC's CS signals are both low-powered (K30AA and K15ED / K15GL, respectively).Not to mention that KTFD has a digital signal on 15.Pat Cook said:
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