What is the most distant TV signal you ever tuned in using a conventional antenna? In 1984 in suburban Boston I picked up channel 3 out of Tampa/St. Petersburg on a portable TV using rabbit ears. It was around 6 o'clock in the evening and was carrying PBS' Nightly Business Report. I thought at first it was just channel 2 in Boston which is also PBS coming in on channel 3. But when the ran the station ID I was amazed to see it was out of Tampa! The signal was pretty snowy but clear enough to read the cities of license on the ID slide. I lost the signal after about fifteen minutes. Also I sent a reception report to the station and received back a nice letter from the chief engineer confirming my reception!Does anyone have a similar story about TV reception?
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WHAT IS THE MOST DISTANT TV SIGNAL YOU EVER TUNED IN?
- Thread starter cheapman
- Start date
I don't remember the channel number, but it was a station from Charleston, SC, and I lived in the Houston, TX area.
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fred flintstone
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I once picked up channel 2 Orlando in East Lansing, Mi on a portable with rabbit ears.
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mkjatobr
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Well... when I was in Jackson, Mississippi.. I actually recieved WBTT 105.5 The Beat radio station for a total off 2 minutes from Fort Myers, FL! And Also in Jackson, when I was at the Southern Farm building on County Line Rd. I recieved the NBC affiliate ALL the way from Shreveport, LA and I held it for a good hour or so, I was able to watch The Today Show. Maybe this a dumb question, but how is it at times, we are able to recieve TV/Radio signals from far, far away?
Living in the Southern Suburbs of Chicago, on a portable B&W TV set with a built in antenna, I picked up KIII Channel 3 from Corups Christi several times. I also picked up Channel 4 in St John's NewfoundlandThis was in 1979. That was a banner year for me for pulling in distant TV stations.Funny thing were I was, I rarely would get stations North or NW of me, but I constantly got ones SW (From St Louis) and NE (Grand rapids.). Indianapolis (SE) came in decent that year too
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mr_mark_taylor
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Living in Central Maine I've gotten Ch 30 from Hartford, CT; one of the stations from Detriot, MI (don't remember whitch one, I think it was on VHF) and an unknown CTV channel 21 (It was part of CTV atlantic I beleive from either New Brunswick or Nova Scosica). Also when maine public TV (10 from Augusta and 12 from Bangor) sign off I can regularly get Ch 11 from NH
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NHtvProduction
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Although it's not the longest distance, but from southern nH I am able to catch stations from Providence (WPRI12 and WJAR10) and Portland (WCSH6, WMTW8, and WGME13) On some rare occasions I got interfering signals from WCSH6 and WLNE6 at the same time. I have also seen rare apearances from channel 3 (WFSB) in Hartford, CT
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KML0224
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You likely got either channel 4 or 5 from Charleston, but no chance at their channel 2 due to local KPRC-TV there in Houston. As for SC's channel 2 (WCBD-TV), it was the first skip signal I ever received while living in southern Maine in the mid-1980s. Being in Old Orchard Beach (12 miles from Portland), I naturally thought it was either WLBZ-TV (NBC) channel 2 from Bangor or WGBH-TV (PBS) channel 2 from Boston. Boy was I surprised!Living here in central Connecticut these days, the furthest I've gotten for VHF television is select channel 2s from Miami (WPBT), Daytona Beach/Orlando (WESH), Saint Paul (KTCA), Saint Joseph, MO (KQTV) and Tulsa, OK (KJRH). The furthest UHF signal I ever received here was WBOC-TV (CBS) channel 16 from Salisbury, MD.Buddy Hayes said:
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KML0224
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Channel 30 froom "Hartford" is WVIT-TV (NBC) channel 30, which is licensed to my hometown of NEW BRITAIN, CT (9 miles southwest of Hartford). Their transmitter is on Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington, CT. Say, were you able to receive WTIC-TV (FOX) channel 61 of Hartford that day too? They've got a 5 million watt visual ERP signal and are on the same mountain as WVIT-TV. Detroit's VHF stations are FOX 2, NBC 4 and ABC 7. You have CBC 9 in the area from Windsor, Ontario as well.I can't speak for NOVA SCOTIA, but I had a lot of trouble with New Hampshire's channel 11 when living in Old Orchard Beach, ME. Their transmitter was/is in Deerfield, NH, further to the west than Portsmouth was/is.mr_mark_taylor said:
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KML0224
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Do you ever get WCAX-TV (CBS) channel 3 from Burlington, VT or WPTZ-TV (NBC) channel 5 from Plattsburgh, NY?NHtvProduction said:
One night it was raining and a local channel signed off for the night and i was getting "WHUC 10 -- Rochester" over the cable system,pretty much full quieting for several hours that night..... And another night i had "PHL 17 - Phila" in one night for a little bit on the cable system (After the local 17 dropped off) (Still have it on tape)
Hmm, some of the ones I can remember (I don't have a roof antenna anymore, and DX has changed somewhat with Digital signals and all) in the early 80's I got KOTV ch 6 Tulsa Oklahoma, from Washington St. in New Britain, CT.Same location but on a pair of rabbit ears (I think this was also early 80's) I got WPBT ch 2 in Miami.I miss having a good rotoray roof antenna, maybe again someday, at least I can still radio DX from my car, almost all last week I was getting Frank FM 107.5 in Portland Maine mixing in with the usual WBLS and WFCC clash, of course this was during the non-stop second coming of noah's ark. Once the rains went away, so did frank fm.
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cdk
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From here in Phoenix, I received a signal from the NBC station in Charlotte, NC back in the early 90's...since then I've had a hard time finding anything else outside of AZ. Pretty strange!
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KML0224
Guest
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.
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cdk
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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:
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DoctorBear
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I think it was a few years before that that I picked up Channel 4, now CBAT, but CHSJ in those days out of St. John's. Even got a letter back (they didn't have radio-style QSL cards) confirming my reception after I wrote them a letter. I was in Hortonville, Wis. (about 40 miles SW of Green Bay) at the time, with a rooftop antenna that actually hung inside the attic of our house. (it faced northwest to get the Green Bay signals, but by rotating it and with a following wind, we could sometimes pick up WTMJ Channel 4 in Milwaukee).Mark said:
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