TV DXing

[John L]

Receiving distant television signals has always been a hobby of mine.  Last year after making some upgrades on my outdoor antenna system I decided to finally purchase a Digital TV card. The Hauppaugh Win-TV-D.

This morning was an interesting day since we were getting some trop across Lake Michigan.

With the antenna rotated ESE I was scanning the channels both analog and digital and when it was scanning on ch. 30 the thing was detecting a digital TV signal.  Since we have a local analog station on ch. 30 they were off the air.  Lo and Behold to my surprise the signal came thru strong enough to receive a video and audio and menu ID it as WSBT-DT which is in South Bend, IN.
WSBT also was there with its analog on ch. 22. Ch. 22 is also used locally for WVCY-DT which happens to be off the air also.  Of Course the usual Chicago Analog and Digital signals were there. I was watching a boxing match on WSNS-DT ch. 45 last night.

Speaking of last night I was getting Michigan stations and a hint of their digital signals was coming in as well.

This is the time of the year for DX.  Not much in the way of Skip so far this year.

I am a member of the World TV & FM DX Association and receive the monthly publication "VHF-UHF Digest" listing regular members reports of distant station activity, articles pertaining to radio and TV in general as well as DX and technical aspects of antennas and so forth.

I will be attending this year's annual event of the Worldwide TV & FM DX Associations Convention which will be held in Omaha, Nebraska July 29 to August 1st.

Here is a link to their website http://anarc.org/wtfda/

-John L.