November Tropo

[NN2E]

11-6-09
#369 KTXH 19 (20) Houston, TX. 650 mi.
#370 KKYK 49 Camden, AR. 340 mi.
#371 KVHP 30 (29) Lake Charles, LA. 530 mi.
#372 KZJL 44 (61) Houston, TX.
#373 KETZ 10 (12) El Dorado, AR. 340 mi.
#374 KRIV 26 Houston, TX.
#375 KIAH 38 (39) Houston, TX.

11-7-09
#376 WVUE 29 (8) New Orleans, LA. 485 mi.
#377 WGMB 45 (44) Baton Rouge, LA. 475 mi.
#378 KFXK 31 (51) Longview, TX. 490 mi.
#379 KLTS 24 Shreveport, LA. 425 mi.
#380 KETK 22 (56) Jacksonville, TX. 515 mi.
#381 WXXV 48 (25) Gulfport, MS. 425 mi.
#382 KALB 35 (5) Alexandria, LA. 465 mi.
#383 KTMD 48 (47) Galveston, TX. 645 mi.
#384 KXXV 26 (25) Waco, TX. 635 mi.
#385 KSLA 17 (12) Shreveport, LA.
#386 KNCT 46 Belton, TX. 665 mi.
#387 KPLC 7 Lake Charles, LA. 530 mi.
#388 KTUZ 29 (30) Shawnee, OK. 490 mi.
#389 KSBI 51 (52) Oklahoma City, OK. 515 mi.
#390 KOTV 45 (6) Tulsa, OK. 410 mi.
#391 KOKH 24 (25) Oklahoma City, OK.
#392 KOCB 33 (34) Oklahoma, City, OK.
#393 KOED 11 Tulsa, OK.
#394 KAUT 40 (43) Oklahoma City, OK.
#395 KTXA 18 (21) Fort Worth, TX. 570 mi.
#396 KWTV 39 (9) Oklahoma City, OK
Lots of re-logs from AR, LA, MS, TX.

11-8-09
#397 WYCC 21 (20) Chicago, IL. 350 mi.
#398 WLS 44 (7) Chicago, IL.
#399 WCIU 27 (26) Chicago, IL.
#400 WGBO 38 (66) Joliet, IL. 350 mi.
#401 WHME 48 (46) South Bend, IN. 350 mi.
#402 WISE-DR 18 (33) Fort Wayne, IN. 340 mi.
#403 WOTV 20 (41) Battle Creek, MI. 425 mi.
#404 WANE 31 (15) Fort Wayne, IN.
#405 WFWA 40 (39) Fort Wayne, IN.

11-9-09
#406 WOSU 38 (34) Columbus. OH. 360 mi.
#407 WCMH 14 (4) Columbus, OH.
#408 WDTN 50 (2) Dayton, OH. 300 mi.
#409 WTLW 44 Lima, OH. 350 mi.
#410 WSFJ 24 (51) Newark, OH. 385 mi.
#411 WHIO 41 (7) Dayton, OH.

11-13-09
#412 WLOX 39 (13) Biloxi, MS. 425 mi.
Lots of other AL, AR, LA, MS stations.

11-14-09
#413 WJTV 12 Jackson, MS. 340 mi.
#414 WEAR 17 (3) Pensacola, FL. 445 mi.
#415 WPMI 15 Mobile, AL. 430 mi.
#416 WMAH 16 (19) Biloxi, MS. 425 mi.
Plus other AL, FL, LA, MS stations.

11-15-09
#417 WGXA 16 (24) Macon, GA. 395 mi.
#418 WXIA 10 (11) Atlanta, GA. 310 mi.
#419 WPXK 23 (54) Jellico, TN. 235 mi.

Modified Finco P-7 UHF at 45 ft.
Antennacraft CS-1100 VHF at 40 ft.
Alliance HD-73 rotor
Channel Master 7777 pre-amp
3/4 inch cable TV hardline
Zenith DTT-901 DTV box
9 inch B&W monitor

73, Ed NN2E
Owner / Operator - Murphy's Law Test Site & Thunderstorm Proving Grounds

[KA9UVY]

Ed, Your getting some great stuff down there... Maybe all that work on the dish was worth it this summer??
I am just north of the promised land according to the prop map and I have seen some TX,LA,AR stuff but only one new one so far.
The opening was best here at about 1:00AM last night and I still have some AR,LA signals popping in once in a while here at noon.

[NN2E]

Hi Bob,
It's 12:30 PM and I just woke up, again. Been a long night.
I'm still seeing DX at this time. KPXJ 21 Minden, LA turned up in the last channel scan.
Been looking for KNVO 49 but keep getting KNVA.
Another DXer in Pope County, Illinois (about 40 miles north-northwest of me) wasn't seeing much DX either (as of early this morning).
I've got about 4 months on this antenna system and it seems to be working well. I hope it hangs in there a while longer. No more ice storms, PLEASE!
73, Ed NN2E
Owner / Operator - Murphy's Law Test Site & Thunderstorm Proving Grounds

[swampman]

Ed very nice catches there! KTXH 650! Wow!. I was looking at your Finco P-7 and it looks alot like the Channelmaster 4251...also discontinued.
Seemed like an awesome antenna.

[NN2E]

Hi Mike,
This opening is going strong, as I type this, early Sunday evening.
I'm still getting stations from AL, AR, IA, IL, IN, LA, MO, MS, OH, OK & TX.
Yeah, too bad there's not an affordable parabolic antenna available any more. Wade makes one but it's BIG buck$.
Well, back to work. I'd like to hit #400, before this opening quits, so I'm gonna stay after it.
Update- 8:10 PM: Just logged #400.
73, Ed NN2E
Owner / Operator - Murphy's Law Test Site & Thunderstorm Proving Grounds

[swampman]

400 nice! I think I'm at about 65 or 68 different RF channels. :( You've done very well in your tropo catches. What do you attribute you success to mostly, antenna or hieght?

[NN2E]

Hi Mike,

Location. I'm on relatively high flat ground. Good view to the horizon in most directions. I chose this location with radio/TV in mind. It doesn't hurt that I'm in the middle of the Country. No matter which way I point the antenna there's a TV station out there. Even with poor antennas I've gotten some good DX.

Persistence. You have to keep looking. You never know when the band will open so I check as often as I can. Even when I'm not around I'll set the DTV box on a channel, point the antenna at the intended target, and let the box sit there until it sees enough signal to latch on to. I've logged several stations, while sleeping, by doing this. It's parked on channel 25, right now, looking for KOZJ.

Few local pests. My #1 pain in the a** is WKMU 36 (21). My tower can see their tower. This one is impossible to work around. They used to go off the air at night but they run 24/7 now. I hate them. :-) The other locals can be a problem but I've been able to work around most of them.

Research. I use the W9WI database a LOT. (I nearly wore it out this past weekend - Thanks Doug) I make up a "shopping list" of stations that should be DXable from here so, when the band opens, I already know what to look for in that direction. Also, when you see a station from a certain area you can check the database for other possible targets from that area.

Watch for stations to go off the air. If I ever see that one of my locals has gone down I'll search that channel until the local fires up again. A good time to do this is after major WX events...thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, ice storms, etc. Not all stations have back-up power or back-up transmitters. I was able to log WCET this way while WSIL was off the air.

73, Ed NN2E
Owner / Operator - Murphy's Law Test Site & Thunderstorm Proving Grounds

[swampman]

Hi Mike,

[QUOTE]Few local pests. My #1 pain in the a** is WKMU 36 (21). My tower can see their tower. This one is impossible to work around. They used to go off the air at night but they run 24/7 now. I hate them. :-)

Perhaps a little C4 placed at the base of a certain tower would eliminate your problems? :D


Research. I use the W9WI database a LOT. (I nearly wore it out this past weekend - Thanks Doug) I make up a "shopping list" of stations that should be DXable from here so, when the band opens, I already know what to look for in that direction. Also, when you see a station from a certain area you can check the database for other possible targets from that area.

Can you point me in the direction of this W9WI database? And if its somewhere in this forum...my appologies for not seeing it.

Thanks for all the info Ed.

[NN2E]

I wouldn't go as far as the C-4. A brief transmitter failure is all I'm asking for. :-)

http://www.w9wi.com/newweb/index.html

73, Ed NN2E
Owner / Operator - Murphy's Law Test Site & Thunderstorm Proving Grounds

[Danny]

Ed, congratulations on DTV 400. To the best of my knowledge, you, Bob, and Jeff Kadet are the only DXers with 400 DTVs logged. And Greg Barker is not far behind. Everybody else is under 300.

Tom Bryant and I used to communicate every so often by email. We were talking some years back about parabolic dishes, and Tom mentioned that you had a seven-foot dish. (Tom and I both had Antennacraft five-foot dishes at the time.) He also said you had received a lot of good TV DX.

The dish helps, but there are some big-time TV and DTV DXers in Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana. Those states contain some hot locations for TV DXing.

[NN2E]

Hi Danny. Funny thing... The farthest tropo DTV DX I've ever gotten on UHF (770 miles - San Antonio) I received on the indoor Rad-Shack antenna (pointed the wrong way) as well as on the 7 ft parabolic set-up. This doesn't mean I'm ready to retire the parabolic, though. :-)
Tom and Doug made a trip up here, many years ago, to visit and do a little DXing. At the time I had the stock Finco P-7 at 60 ft and a Channel Master 3610B Crossfire (the next to the largest one) at 55 ft. The pre-amp was a 7477A Channel Master to RG-11 feedline. Didn't even have the R-7000 Icom at that time. Did all of my DXing with a 1983 GE 19 inch color set.
Ahhh, the good ol' days.
73, Ed NN2E
Owner / Operator - Murphy's Law Test Site & Thunderstorm Proving Grounds

[indysteve]

Ed,

Congrats on logging 400 DTVs! Your reception is unbelieveable. And I don't believe you've been DXing DTV very long (less than 2 years?). I started back in Aug. 2001 and I just got up to 233. Unfortunately, I live in a suburban/metropolitan area, in a slightly lower terrain level neighborhood with lots of trees and 3-5 miles from most of the Indy TV towers. Luckily, since June 12, I at least have more "open" channels now.

Your reception comments above in post #7 are right on target. Especially with DTV reception, it's all about location, location, location. While I live on the far north side of Indy, another DXer on the south side of town (approx. 15 miles SSE of my location) was receiving stations from MS and even Pensacola, FL on Friday evening, while I was seeing zilch.....I mean NOTHING! Apparently I was just that far north of the tropo line.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine lives about 14 miles southeast of Quincy, IL, out in the sticks with mostly corn fields around his property. A few years ago I set up a simple RS UHF yagi @ 18 ft. AGL and a CM 7777 in his backyard (pic attached). He's 99-104 miles from the St. Louis towers and receives those stations quite well at least 80-90% of the time. This same antenna setup at my location would work for the locals but that would be about it. It still blows my mind that he has such great reception with this antenna setup.......location, location, location.

While you've received numerous stations at over 400, 500 and even 600 miles, I just received my first UHF station over 500 miles yesterday, after almost 50 years of DXing in central Indiana. Even back in the 1970s when I had a CM 4250 (6 ft. version of the 4251) @ 40 ft. some 35 miles north of Indy, the best UHF distance I recall was CITY-79, Toronto @ around 420 miles. And one time, I went nuts when I received WAAY-31, Huntsville, AL, a little under 400 miles. Then yesterday morning, I finally broke the 500+ and 600+ distances. And some say DTV can't be received. It took me almost 50 years to get these distances.............with digital television!!! Given the proper location, receiving equipment and perseverance, DTV DXing is definitely doable.

Here's the list of new DTV logs from yesterday (11-14-09) morning:

0358 EST WCIQ-DT-7 Mount Cheaha, AL @ 446 miles
0913 EST WIAT-DT-30 Birmingham, AL @ 447 miles
0917 EST WSFA-DT-12 Montgomery, AL @ 550 miles
0920 EST WTTO-DT-28 Homewood, AL @ 447 miles
0941 EST WDEF-DT-12 Chattanooga, TN @ 335 miles
0946 EST WCOV-DT-20 Montgomery, AL @ 550 miles
0947 EST WCTE-DT-22 Cookeville, TN @ 264 miles
1007 EST WRBL-DT-15 Columbus, GA @ 531 miles
1016 EST WTVY-DT-36 Dothan, AL @ 623 miles (DTV tropo distance record)

Equipment: Two-Triax Unix 100 (yagi-style) UHF antennas horizontally stacked @ 43 ft. AGL with an old 1970s Winegard preamp, Funke 1922 VHF-hi antenna @ 36 ft. with CM 7777 preamp and Zenith DTT900 CECB.

I may never see some of these again from my location, but I'll certainly remember this DXing session.

Steve

[swampman]

Nice catches there Steve, and congrats on your record breaking 500 and 600 mi catches. On Friday I pulled in my second 500+ with WTWC in Tallahassee at 504. Almost matched my current record of 506 WCTV Tallahasee a couple of weeks ago.

[Danny]

Very impressive DTV DX, Steve and Mike (swampman). I enjoyed seeing your pictures.

Steve, you make some good points about DTV DX.

Steve, thanks for sharing so many helpful DTV DX tips over the years.

[NN2E]

Hi Steve,

Congrats on the 600+ mile DX!

I started DTV DXing on May 23, 2008 so I'm closing in on 18 months.

I can understand the Metro area problems for a DXer. When I first started TV DXing, back in the 1960's, I lived about halfway between New York City and Philadelphia. They had all of 2 through 13 clogged up (except for ch 8) so VHF DXing was next to impossible. It wasn't until we got a TV with UHF that I was able to log much tropo. When I left N.J. in 1989 I only had 105 stations in the log for 25+ years worth of DXing.

A local TV DXer, who lives 7 miles from me, has yet to log a station from Memphis. I can't hide from Memphis. Location.

I like the picture of the cornfield antenna. Reminds me of last Spring when I was modifying / testing the parabolic. I was able to receive some of the Atlanta analog UHFs (310 miles) with the antenna strapped to the back deck, about 12 ft AGL. Again, location.

In a way, DTV has made DXing easier... The ability to ID stations immediately.
In another way, DTV has made DXing harder...The inability to ID weak signals.
Some analog stations, that used to be DXable on ANY day, have taken MONTHS to put in the log now that they've gone digital.

You've gotten a couple of them I still need. WSFA and WTVY. Both of those channels are clogged by locals.

73, Ed NN2E
Owner / Operator - Murphy's Law Test Site & Thunderstorm Proving Grounds