Digital Antennas (1998)

[Cham]

A rotor can help a lot too, especially if you are using a directional yagi or log periodic antenna. Get the antenna as high as possible above the trees or other buildings... at least as much as practical. If you find a signal you can point the antenna to maximize reception.
E-layer refraction is quite rare above 150MHz, but quite often occours in the 25-80MHz part of the spectrum. I believe the 50MHz ham band was open earlier today in some areas. TV stations in the 60-88MHz portion might be receivable over 1000mi if conditions are right. I am thinking most TV stations are using the high VHF band or UHF though. Maybe there are places in the US that still use low band VHF? Here in Canada thay are almost all gone now.
Good luck and have fun DXing!

 

[NYDutch]

...
I am thinking most TV stations are using the high VHF band or UHF though. Maybe there are places in the US that still use low band VHF? Here in Canada thay are almost all gone now.
Good luck and have fun DXing!

Following the in progress channel repack, there will be about 60 US stations on low VHF.

RabbitEars.Info

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

when the Ku receiver (4DTV, MPEG.4, Digicipher II etc...), adjusts the coaxial cable through the antenna, couldn't the UHF remote switch to local channels? (from Ku programming), I'm just curious.

 

[harshness]

when the Ku receiver (4DTV, MPEG.4, Digicipher II etc...), adjusts the coaxial cable through the antenna, couldn't the UHF remote switch to local channels? (from Ku programming), I'm just curious.

Receivers don't "adjust the coaxial cable". You'll need to find a better way to describe what you're talking about.

The UHF remote portion of the remote could only control the satellite portion of the receiver. The satellite receiver could not tune OTA channels. There's no intersection there. The IR portion of the remote could control the TV in the room that you were in (including switching inputs to the TV's internal tuner and changing channels).

Local channels could be on the cable but the 4DTV receivers had no way to deal with them.

It is folly to ascribe modern attributes to 4DTV equipment that ceased production years ago.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

Oh, I see but other than the "coaxial cable" stuff, the stations you receive depend on the area you live at for example in the Jacksonville, FL area these are the channels that you'd receive (WJXT 4 (CBS), WJCT 7 (PBS), WTLV 12 (NBC), WJWB 17 (WB), W66CQ 18 (Uni.), WJXX 25 (ABC), WAWS 30 (Fox), WTEV 47 (UPN) etc...), If the antenna (digital) is faced south you could receive stations in the Gainesville (71. 4 miles), Orlando (143 miles), Tampa Bay (199 miles), Sarasota (252 miles), Ft. Myers (298 miles), West Palm Beach (310 miles) and Miami (348 miles) markets. I'd please like to know what you'd think?

 

[SatPhreak]

You can only get about 100 miles with a great antennea. Any thin

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[SatPhreak]

Any thing more only with skip.

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[JosephHolloway1998]

Okay, but do you need a regular standard antenna for TV-DX? same goes with E-skip.

 

[harshness]

Okay, but do you need a regular standard antenna for TV-DX? same goes with E-skip.

Generally speaking, an OTA TV antenna is what is required to tune OTA TV. An AM radio antenna probably isn't going to work nor is a a satellite dish.

If you're going to do skip, it is probably best to have a directional TV antenna that has gain at the frequencies of the stations you're looking to catch. DO NOT EXPECT THAT YOU'LL GET SKIP ANY TIME YOU PLEASE. It may be exceedingly rare in some areas due to the conditions that must be met.

DXing isn't what it used to be (pre-DTV) and after the repack, it will likely be even harder to grab due to the more intensive sharing of frequencies.

 

[primestar31]

Select your region in the drop-down in the upper left corner. It'll show a map that shows your present tropo ducting for dx'ing. Then click on the map itself to advance time zones. Notice the future time and date stamps at top of the map.

Tropospheric Ducting Forecast for VHF & UHF Radio & TV

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

but the map shows the European countries not the US States.
Tropospheric Ducting Forecast for VHF & UHF Radio & TV
But this is more like it, the stations you receive (via TV DX Tropo/E-skip) depend on the weather conditioons.

 

[primestar31]

but the map shows the European countries not the US States.
Tropospheric Ducting Forecast for VHF & UHF Radio & TV
But this is more like it, the stations you receive (via TV DX Tropo/E-skip) depend on the weather conditioons.

Joseph, re-read my first sentence on that post. I'll quote it here: "Select your region in the drop-down in the upper left corner". In your case, that would be "Western North America"...

Then it will show YOUR area. Note, you can select pretty much any area in the world, if you want to see what others are doing.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

Okay, I get it.

 

[harshness]

Is the Western US ever anything other than quiet?

 

[primestar31]

Is the Western US ever anything other than quiet?

Well, to be sure, most of the consistent "hot air" is up around the Washington DC/New York East coast area...

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

What about the long-range antennas? They could go beyond 100 miles (you could probably receive Tropo and E-skip on there).

 

[harshness]

What about the long-range antennas? They could go beyond 100 miles (you could probably receive Tropo and E-skip on there).

The point of tropospheric ducting is that an extraordinary antenna is not all that important -- the signal is literally piped in. As with non-tropo, I suppose that if ducting is low, a higher gain TV antenna may work better. Absent tropo, there's no point.

Of course where you live, all the channels are pretty well populated anyway so DXing would seem to be very difficult.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

but is a Digital Antenna including Channel Master (like the analog OTA rooftop antennas) capable of receiving low-powered stations?

 

[Titanium]

Yes.

but is a Digital Antenna including Channel Master (like the analog OTA rooftop antennas) capable of receiving low-powered stations?

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

but what other Digital Antennas did they have back then aside from the Channel Master CM-2020?