[OKDXA] Meanwhile, At Open Fuse Acres...

[Nelson Derks]

Several items of possible interest...

1) Six had a modest opening on Wednesday night, worked two stations in 
the Canuckistani province of Ontario with a smokin' 25 watts. Could have 
pushed it up to 100 watts but when the sig report is 10 over, what's the 
point?

2) Was up early this morning and at 5:30 flipped on the TV to check the 
weather. Ended up watching KFSM in Ft. Smith, KOCB in OKC and KTEN in 
Sherman-Dennison-Ardmore. All were solid copy until around 6:15 when it 
all went away within a minute or two. It should be noted that KOCB is 
usually the first to show and the last to go when the DTV is feeling 
perky but when it's over, it's over.

3) The stupid little wire TV antenna in the attic continues to impress. 
As threatened a few weeks ago, I did pull down the V/U outdoor TV 
antenna and replaced it with a 10 el UHF Yagi with Armstrong rotation 
capability. I'm line of sight to the towers in Oneta and had no trouble 
with the locals on VHF 8, 10 and 11 despite the modest size of the Yagi. 
And, as expected, I did see better signal levels on UHF compared to the 
attic wire. But... As best I can tell from the converter box the 
difference is of the order of 1 dB or so even though the Yagi was about 
five feet higher and very much in the clear outdoors.

In other words, the silly little wire in the attic works much better 
than it should. When TV was analog the extra dB was somewhat useful, but 
with digital anything above the threshold of solid copy makes no 
difference. I may change my mind about this when there is snow on the 
roof, but for now the attic wire is more than adequate.

BTW: If you think the local car commercials are lame in Tulsa and OKC, 
they're even worse in Sherman-Dennison. You'd think they give 'em away 
down there. ;)