[OKDXA] Speaking Of Digital DX...

[G Ray]

Seems to me that a "Porpucpine" scanner antenna ought to serve very well for DTV signals.   Here in B.A. east of Tulsa, I do pretty well with rabbit ears but I think a porcupine antenna in the attic might pull in some additional stations. I do have one that I plan to try out. 73, Gene, AE5FT.




________________________________
From: Jerry Chouinard <k5yaa at okdxa.org>
To: Discussion of OKDXA <okdxa at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 1:33:31 AM
Subject: Re: [OKDXA] Speaking Of Digital DX...

Took me a minute to decipher the DTV acronym - then it hit me.  That's the 
stuff that out 3 orphaned TVs cannot detect.  No loss as satellite service 
has been the mainstay here for
some time.  DXing for DTV signals is interesting however.  A folded dipole 
was my first
antenna for 40 meters 50 years ago.  As memory serves me it performed 
pretty well.

Interesting DX story as per usual Nelson.  Glad to know Digital stuff is 
working in case I ever
decide to revamp those old sets of mine.  I can probably lift the dipole up 
a bit higher than the
15 feet you mention - maybe pull in a Memphis station?

K5YAA

At 06:21 AM 7/16/2009 -0500, you wrote:
>Got the bug this past week to follow through on a project I've been
>meaning to get a round tuit for a while... Put up a one size fits all
>wire in the attic to cover TV & FM. Normally this would be a bad time of
>year to stroll around in the attic, but the attic fan has become a
>little squeaky and since it needs to be oiled that's two birds on the
>same perspiration.
>
>In any case, visualize 64 inches of wire cut 16 inches from one end.
>Direct feed to 75 Ohm coax with the shorter wire on the shield, longer
>wire on the center conductor, tied as high as I could reach near the
>south end of the house. Basic concept is a full wave dipole on TV
>channel 7, approximately a half wave on FM and multiple waves on UHF. If
>someone wanted to do this for FM BCB the magic numbers would be 10 feet
>of wire tip-to-tip with the feedpoint at 2.5 feet.
>
>We're talking zero gain omni. As we all know a proper TV antenna has
>gain and is directional so the wire idea is a poor choice... Except that
>I'm on top of a slight ridge and have always had good luck on VHF / UHF
>and with TV stations coming in from approximately 270 degrees around the
>compass I'm thinking w-i-d-e area coverage.
>
>In the living room I have a Scientific Atlanta two-port drop amp with
>+11dB of gain on each side followed by an 8 dB Blonder-Tongue tap. At
>the moment I'm driving two DTV boxes and an FM stereo receiver with a
>second FM receiver to be added later. Normally I don't like using an amp
>on a broadband antenna cuz' there's always a paging system or strong FM
>just begging to create some overload or intermod issues but so far "no
>prob". If I was driving only one DTV box the amp would be a waste of
>resources.
>
>On the FM side I'm hearing full quieting on all three LPFM translators
>in Tulsa plus the more ambitious stations in OKC, Fayetteville,
>Bartlesville, etc. On the TV side I have solid copy on all stations in
>the Tulsa metro along with 35 in Claremore, 17 in Bartlesville plus two
>LP signals on 40 and 51. Let's just say that if I was a fan of
>faith-based TV I'd have more than I could ever want...
>
>This morning I'm watching the morning news on KFSM in Ft. Smith and have
>mostly solid copy on KOCB in OKC. KOKH is also trying hard but with a
>bit less moxie than 34. It should also be noted that the roof is wet and
>as best I can tell this isn't exactly a band opening kinda' thing but
>more like VHF / UHF stretching out in the heat & humidity of a summer
>morning.
>
>Not bad for some scrap wire & coax no more than 15' above ground, ehhhh?
>
>If I pull the drop amp and go full passive it still works FB on the
>locals but I will see dropouts on 35 in Claremore. 17 in Bartlesville is
>solid copy without the amp but it's something of a cheater signal. The
>stick is snug up against the Washington county line so it's not as DX as
>the license would suggest.
>
>Cool thing about DX'ing DTV is that the weaker signals look just as good
>as the locals... When they don't stutter. ;)
>
>
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