I miss DX'ing TV stations

[Mr Tony]

NIce!!!!!! I just bought a Tivo Roamio for OTA the other day. I finally got the wife convinced to drop cable Bought an apple tv for hbo and showtime. So we are all set

You'll love the Roamio. Bought 3 Roamios and 3 minis myself, a few months ago. Best thing I've bought in a long time.

Agreed. I LOVE my Roamio

Yes they are sweet! The tuner is more sensitive than the one in the tv

not as good as the Zenith/Insignia converter boxes

 

[iafirebuff]

Thats good to know! Its kinda fun to DX the tv stations

 

[Mr Tony]

I agree! Its fun to see what pops up.

 

[Mr Tony]

Some pics

 

[Mr Tony]

More

 

[danristheman]

Last this was a first Bloomington indiana pbs station that had world tv first time seeing that with an 4 bay antenna indoors. Ice do you have pics of the ota tuners you have so I know what to look for? Are those same as the Magnovox ota tuners?

 

[Mr Tony]

Ice do you have pics of the ota tuners you have so I know what to look for?

the tuner I use is a Zenith converter box. Insignia also branded them (same guts). Read some of the posts earlier in the thread. It has the info on them

Are those same as the Magnovox ota tuners?

no clue as I havent had one of them but I doubt it. The Zenith/Insignia have the most sensitive tuner and are great for DX'ing

 

[danristheman]

Thank you ice Magnovox tuners were sold through wal mart only way to control is by remote no front panel buttons. We need to tests on new and old tuners to run comparison?

 

[Mr Tony]

We need to tests on new and old tuners to run comparison?

Why? Its not 2008
If you want a receiver for DX, its the zenith or insignia. The rest are For just picking up the locals

 

[danristheman]

Its just a thought ice since we were talking about on here.

 

[Mr Tony]

I don't understand why..

If you want a receiver for DX, its the zenith or insignia. The rest are For just picking up the locals

The zenith has the most sensitive tuner and manual tuning.

 

[fred555]

I have an Insignia NS-DXA2, is this a good one?

 

[Mr Tony]

I have an Insignia NS-DXA2, is this a good one?

That is a nice one. Should work well

The older ones are ns dxa1. Those have the zenith guts

 

[nusatman]

Just reading this post has gotten me pretty darn excited to get my setup up and running. I also have a zenith 901, and for good measure I also have a Tivax STB-T8. I bought them both when I was using a couple of older indoor amplifieds, and each worked amazingly well.

 

[Mr Tony]

. Sometimes the interference will wipe the KSAX signal out completely, in which case a "no signal" message that looks exactly like the one that appears on the Zenith box you are using pops up on the screen in place of the KSAX programming.

thats what I saw this morning on 16. The blue "no signal"
42 must have been down as there was no signal on 42 either....and with the low humidity I doubt it was interference

 

[Mr Tony]

HOLY SWEET JESUS!!!

So today I got home finally (after being gone for 17 days)...anywho figured I got a couple days to play with the antenna (before my dad comes up...he owns the house) so put the 8 bay on the deck and just wanted to tune in Ion (which is the closest station) so I can watch the 20 some hours on the Tivo from the 2 weeks in the Cities....but I noticed I was getting more. Like 3 & 6 from the Rochester/Mason City market (which I posted originally). So grabbed the 2nd mast and rotor and set it up. Well today I think I had a "TV DX Orgasm"

Stations logged between 1PM and 2:30 PM Central time. I did hook up the VHF antenna for about 1/2 hour to log a couple VHF only stations

26 (27) WKOW ABC Madison, WI
20 (21) WHA PBS Madison, WI
50 (3) WISC CBS Madison, WI

18 (18) WVTV CW Milwaukee, WI
33 (6) WITI FOX Milwaukee, WI
46 (58) WDJT CBS Milwaukee, WI
25 (24) WCGV MY Milwaukee, WI
28 (4) WTMJ NBC Milwaukee, WI <-----my local PBS (28 miles away) is on this same RF station and WTMJ obliterated it
34 (12) WISN ABC Green Bay, WI <----PBS stations in Minneapolis is on same RF station

7 (7) WSAW CBS Wausau, WI <----picked up on VHF antenna
9 (9) WAOW ABC Wausau, WI <----picked up on VHF antenna
24 (20) WHRM PBS Wausau, WI

27 (28) WHWC PBS Meominee (Eau Claire), WI
38 (13) WEAU NBC Eau Claire, WI
49 (48) WEUX FOX Eau Claire, WI
15 (18) WQOW ABC Eau Claire, WI

39 (14) KMEG CBS Sioux CIty, IA
41 (4) KTIV NBC Sioux City, IA
49 (44) KPTH FOX Sioux City, IA

42 (3) KIMT CBS Mason CIty, IA
36 (6) KAAL ABC Austin (Rochester), MN

47 (46) KDLT NBC Sioux Falls, SD
15 (20) KSMN PBS Worthington, MN (Sioux Falls)
13 (13) KSFY ABC Sioux Falls, SD <-----picked up on the 8 bay

44 (7) WLS ABC Chicago, IL
21 (20) WYCC PBS Chicago, IL
19 (9) WGN CW Chicago, IL
51 (50) WPWR MY Chicago, IL
31 (32) WFLD FOX Chicago, IL

41 (26) WGBA NBC Green Bay, WI
39 (5) WFRV CBS Green Bay, WI
23 (2) WBAY ABC Green Bay, WI <----secondary PBS in Mpls is on same RF station
11 (11) WLUK FOX Green Bay, WI <----picked up on VHF antenna
27 (32) WACY MY Green Bay, WI
42 (38) WPNE PBS Green Bay, WI

26 (14) WCMU PBS Mt Pleasant, MI
19 (17) WXMI FOX Grand Rapids, MI (Tower in GR)
30 (17) WXMI FOX Grand Rapids, MI (Tower in Kalamazoo)
20 (41) WOTV ABC Grand Rapids, MI

Funny thing is my "local" stations (From Minneapolis) were a bitch to get...most wouldn't even come in. If you notice there are 8 duplicate RF stations so depending on which way the antenna was aimed, I got either one station or another

My Zenith box when you go into channel edit looks like hell with multiple 2-1, 7-1 etc. What was awesome is there were a couple times I hit 2-1 for my local PBS (which is on RF34) and all of a sudden it burped and now WISN 12-1 showed up

Couple notes
-I got to see Buzzzr via 50-4 out of Chicago
-Yes Live Well does still exist on 7-2 (and in HD)
-I got to see stations I dont get in Minneapolis like Laff, Escape, Cozi, Buzzr, MundoMax, Zuus Country and a couple others.
-was cool to get the Big 4 + CW & MY out of Milwaukee. My & CW were stable most of the afternoon
-nice to see all of the Eau Claire, WI stations (CBS is out of LaCrosse and is on RF8)
-sweet to get all Green Bay stations (except CW)....noticed that CBS & FOX have no Subs
-Was just floored when I got Grand Rapids, Michigan

I'd post the screen shots but right now they are like 2 to 3MB and there are a TON of them. I have to make them smaller files as I'm home now so dont have unlimited internet

 

[Mr Tony]

oh here is the antenna and how its set up for now (no its not on the roof)
2nd pic is what I'm looking out to the South

I did them as thumbnails...click on them to see full screen

 

[nusatman]

Pretty amazing stuff

 

[kofi123]

HOLY SWEET JESUS!!!

Ah, I was wondering if you were taking advantage of the best late summer DX event in central Minnesota I've seen for several years. Those are some impressive catches. I'm especially amazed at the separate UHF signals from Chicago and Michigan. Those stations are well over 400 miles away!

I haven't been quite as lucky with what I've been able to get in with my own equipment, but I was pretty impressed with one of the things I saw on Sunday evening. I noticed then that I was getting an unusually weak, almost nonexistent, signal on KCCW. As that is a "local" station (broadcasting from about 40 miles away) that typically comes in fairly strong for me, at first I was wondering if there was something wrong with my antenna or setup, or maybe something wrong at the transmitter, but after I flipped through the VHF-Hi dial and tuned in stations 100+ miles away on every other frequency, I realized maybe KCCW was weak due to interference. So next I swung my antenna over to the south. Sure enough, this caused KEYC, whose transmitter is about 170 miles away from me, to pop right in. That had never happened before.

However, as we've both seemed to have noticed, a distant station overpowering a closer one would appear to be one of the defining characteristics of this event. I ended up witnessing this for much of the day on Monday, particularly with regard to FM radio, which I ended up concentrating on DXing more than TV. A number of local-ish FM stations that have a transmitter within 30-60 miles from me and that I usually never have any trouble receiving were being wiped out by stations farther away and, in some cases, less powerful than the nearby station. This happened to a couple of translators as well. That channel 16 KSAX translator (K16BQ) mentioned in previous posts in this thread was having a very hard time receiving the KSAX signal due to interference on Sunday and Monday, causing viewers to see the "no signal" message on screen much more during those two days than the intended KSAX programming. On the radio side, I finally got confirmation that the KAXE translator in Brainerd (K210DR/89.9) does actually pick up KAXE over-the-air at a distance of about 73 miles, since at one point on Monday, 89.9 was translating WXPR from about 240 miles away.

 

[Mr Tony]

Ah, I was wondering if you were taking advantage of the best late summer DX event in central Minnesota I've seen for several years. Those are some impressive catches. I'm especially amazed at the separate UHF signals from Chicago and Michigan. Those stations are well over 400 miles away!

I was amazed too

I haven't been quite as lucky with what I've been able to get in with my own equipment, but I was pretty impressed with one of the things I saw on Sunday evening. I noticed then that I was getting an unusually weak, almost nonexistent, signal on KCCW. As that is a "local" station (broadcasting from about 40 miles away) that typically comes in fairly strong for me, at first I was wondering if there was something wrong with my antenna or setup, or maybe something wrong at the transmitter, but after I flipped through the VHF-Hi dial and tuned in stations 100+ miles away on every other frequency, I realized maybe KCCW was weak due to interference. So next I swung my antenna over to the south. Sure enough, this caused KEYC, whose transmitter is about 170 miles away from me, to pop right in. That had never happened before.

Couldnt get KEYC. I did grab KCCW on the VHF when I had it installed for 1/2 hour or so. I'm 56 miles per tvfool. Once I get everything back on the roof the VHF is aimed NW for KCCW

However, as we've both seemed to have noticed, a distant station overpowering a closer one would appear to be one of the defining characteristics of this event. I ended up witnessing this for much of the day on Monday, particularly with regard to FM radio, which I ended up concentrating on DXing more than TV. A number of local-ish FM stations that have a transmitter within 30-60 miles from me and that I usually never have any trouble receiving were being wiped out by stations farther away and, in some cases, less powerful than the nearby station.

SO TRUE!
I was coming up 169 to come home from the cities and on the west side of Mille Lacs KKIN 94.3 (Aitkin) was non-existent still and Power Loon (KLIZ 107.5) was overpowered with the Mexican station in Faribault (which is 30 miles south of Minneapolis). I finally got Power Loon by Garrison. I was able to get 93.1 out of Iron Mountain, Michigan. Heck I picked up KQ95 (94.9 Duluth) in Elk River crystal clear (there is a 94.9 in St CLoud that should have been there). Meanwhile I couldnt even get the Mpls stations (93X, KQ, Jack 104) north of Elk River. It was fading in and out.

This happened to a couple of translators as well. That channel 16 KSAX translator (K16BQ) mentioned in previous posts in this thread was having a very hard time receiving the KSAX signal due to interference on Sunday and Monday, causing viewers to see the "no signal" message on screen much more during those two days than the intended KSAX programming.

I couldnt even get KSAX yesterday. Normally it comes in now (sometimes pixeling) but nothing. I had a bear getting Ion 41 (which is real easy to get) during the day.