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Most Distant TV Station(s) Received Via Antenna

CADXER said:
As for channel 4 the most common stations were WTMJ, WI and WHFB Rock Island, IL.
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Another impressive list. Great stuff!

As for the Rock Island, IL channel 4, it was/is actually WHBF. How do I know? I spent nearly four years working there! Albeit mostly on the radio side. But I did wind up in front of a TV camera on more than a few occasions. This was in the mid 70s. How far did we get out? One morning I took a call from a local sheriff's dispatcher in Utah, who was watching the CBS Morning news that we ran at that hour.

More commonly here in Crystal Lake, a few years later, I was renting a house that had a good antenna on a rotor. WTMJ-TV was almost local quality (as were the other Milwaukee VHF channels). But if I aimed the antenna southwest, I could snag WHBF-TV (and some of my old buddies) as often as not. Channel 3 was also interesting. I found myself hanging out there during NFL football broadcasts. Lions on WKZO-TV. Then aim the rotor northwest, and it was the Packers on WISC-TV. Decent color picture on each more often than not.
 
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I started out MW DXing, and still do. However, I kind of fell into FM and TV DX by "accidentally" receiving some distant stuff where locals should have been. The attraction for me is this: Unless there are auroral conditions, there is always DX at night on AM. On FM and TV bands, you really have to be looking for it. Over the (many) years I have learned what to look for.

Digital TV propagates the same as analog does. I think the reason most people have given up TV DX is that modern digital tuners mostly make it a pain in the butt, along with good old PSIP making it confusing to know exactly what you're trying to watch. And there's also the "all or nothing" factor.

I use an 8 year old Philips 42" LCD TV with a pretty hot tuner, and an OLD Channel Master 1160 on a rotor with a small preamp to compensate for line loss. I am about 7 miles north of the IL state line and about 2 miles west of Lake Michigan (Kenosha WI). My 3 channels to look at for tropo are WBAY 2 (RF 23) Green Bay, WSBT 22 (RF 22) South Bend, and WOTV 41 (RF 20) Battle Creek. If any or all of those are in, then there are "conditions". This TV allows me to enter a channel number (2 through 51) and if there is a usable signal on that channel it will remap to whatever the PSIP for that station is. Example: Last night I punched in 2 which immediately remapped to 12.1. Pushed the INFO button- WJRT Flint, MI.

Yes, pixellating is a pain, and the knowledge that there is stuff there that the tuner won't lock on is frustrating. The upside is seeing absolutely perfect reception of KMOV 4 (RF 24) St. Louis in the middle of the afternoon, over 300 miles.

I highly recommend it!
 
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crainbebo said:
Well, I received KRMA-6 on their nightlight service 7/1/09 (from Bothell), along with CBWT-6 MB and XETV-6 in Tijuana the following year. I have also gotten XHAQ-5 and (I think) XHBC-3 from Mexicali, before they went off as well. I never really got into TV DX because I was young. Too bad I never got to DX in the '80s.
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I wish I was older so I could have experienced the golden age of TV DX (my home area had no super strong locals on low-V). I do remember getting WITI audio quite often on 87.7 (no surprise considering how often the Class B Milwaukee FMs come in)
 
ftballfan said:
I wish I was older so I could have experienced the golden age of TV DX (my home area had no super strong locals on low-V). I do remember getting WITI audio quite often on 87.7 (no surprise considering how often the Class B Milwaukee FMs come in)
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As a kid, the first time I paid attention to TV DX was receiving WESH ch. 2 Daytona Beach / Orlando 1200 miles away in Boston at a time when sunspot levels were very high. In those days, WGBH carried in-school programming during the day, except during school summer vacation, when they did not sign on until 2 or 3 PM weekdays - and I was home to watch. Other commonly received stations I remember on ch. 2 were WSB Atlanta, WBRZ Baton Rouge, WTWO Terra Haute, and WBAY Green Bay. Sometimes received Spanish news, on a very plain set, with no ads, guessing it was Cuba. The sporadic-E reception, was just that - many stations would come and go, with one replacing another rapidly - and multiple signals on top of each other producing the aptly-named venetian blind effect.

Now and then something would come in on ch. 3, but the WBZ ch. 4 transmitter 3 miles away caused a lot of adjacent channel interference.

A few years later, the furthest signal that came in frequently was WBOC ch. 16, Salisbury, MD, which along with several Pennsylvania stations, would come in for hours. One time, WBOC came in steadily for 2 or 3 days, reporting on a hurricane beating the MD and much of the east coast.
 
I'm glad to see a TV DX thread on this site. I'm in Poughkeepsie, NY and my primary DX passion is DTV DX. I get regular DTV reception from 3 surrounding markets, Albany at 60 miles, New York at 70-75 miles, and Connecticut about 55 miles. My most distant "24/7" reception is WNJB-58 (digital channel 8) from New Brunswick NJ at 86 miles. I was never an active analog DXer, but the "$40 off" gov't converter box coupons coupled with the prospect of cyrstal clear over the air reception got me started with DTV DX in Spring of 2009. This has been an exciting year on the DTV DX dials... a superb tropo event July 9th brought in surprise DX from WYZZ-43 Bloomington, IL at 798 miles, one of my most distant tropo DXes ever. That same morning, three Columbus, OH stations were in: WBNS-10, WSYX-6, and WOSU-34, all just under 500 miles, plus Detroit's WXYZ-7 at 483 miles. This summer, sporadic E-skip brought in 10 different DTV's, including KCWX-2 Fredericksburg (San Antonio, TX) on July 20 at 1591 miles, my most distant DTV station by any mode ever. Most common skip station this summer was WHBF-4 Rock Island, IL. Now I'm looking forward to some more DX with the fall tropo season.
 
The best TV DX I ever got was KFEQ out of St. Joseph Missouri from my home in Charleston, SC. It was a weekday afternoon in the summer and the local Ch2 was off air for transmitter problems. This was in the late 60's.
The problem with TV DXing today is that there are no more low band TV stations (2-6), which was the best band for TV DXing!
 
Summer 2000 E-Skip event. WBTV 3 out of Charlotte, NC made it's way to Bremerton, WA (about 20 miles west of Seattle). Never seen E-skip like that ever before! (Probably won't even again now with digital) Same event also brought in later in the evening, KWGN 2 from Denver, CO, and KCBS 2 out of Los Angeles, CA, among other stations.
 
WBTV, wow! That's double hop! I've only been able to 2-hop once on FM, KWTX 97.5 from Waco last year. Distance was over 1600 miles, and at the same time I had KLMX in New Mexico mixing at around 1000 mi...genuine 2-hop on that part. It looks like the old WTFDA VUDs showed a huge 6-meter double hop opening from the Pacific NW to GA/north FL on August 4th, 2000, and 144 mhz skip was noted to NE. I'm guessing your local 4 and 5 were also lost in interference?
 
crainbebo said:
WBTV, wow! That's double hop! I've only been able to 2-hop once on FM, KWTX 97.5 from Waco last year. Distance was over 1600 miles, and at the same time I had KLMX in New Mexico mixing at around 1000 mi...genuine 2-hop on that part. It looks like the old WTFDA VUDs showed a huge 6-meter double hop opening from the Pacific NW to GA/north FL on August 4th, 2000, and 144 mhz skip was noted to NE. I'm guessing your local 4 and 5 were also lost in interference?
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KNBC I believe was trying to come over KOMO briefly at the time on the antenna feed I had into my Mom's house (saw a faint NBC logo fading and rolling in and out in the corner of the screen). There was also some static coming in on the audio over the cable feed on Ch. 2-6 through that day. (The cable wiring at my Mom's wasn't all shielded that great).
 
swhyde1980 said:
KNBC...saw a faint NBC logo fading and rolling in and out in the corner of the screen.
There was also some static coming in on the audio over the cable feed on Ch. 2-6 through that day.
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Is KNBC the only NBC affiliate on channel four?
By static, do you mean broadband electrical interference?
Was there a lot of lightning that day?
 
KNBC, KAMR, KOB, KVOA and KTIV are all NBC and were on analog 4. Since he had WBTV that day, it could have been any one of those NBC's (keep in mind they are all in single-hop range less than 1500 miles from Seattle).
 
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crainbebo said:
KNBC, KAMR, KOB, KVOA and KTIV are all NBC and were on analog 4.
Since he had WBTV that day, it could have been any one of those NBC's...
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Shhh - I was being passive-aggressive...LOL
 
crainbebo said:
KNBC, KAMR, KOB, KVOA and KTIV are all NBC and were on analog 4. Since he had WBTV that day, it could have been any one of those NBC's (keep in mind they are all in single-hop range less than 1500 miles from Seattle).
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Or even WYFF (NBC, analog 4, adjacent market to WBTV)
 
Sorry I’m a bit late to this party here...

Best analog catch on TV came right after analog shutdown here in the US (summer 2009) when I lived in Hilton Head, SC. I could routinely pick up (I believe) CMQ-TV Habana Cubavision on channel 6. It was definitely Cubavision and on channel 6. Otherwise, I’d routinely pick up either WKMG or WTVJ in analog during tropo season. Cuba is probably a bit too far for tropospheric propagation to Hilton Head, but given the empty band here in the US and the fact that most of the path from SC to Cuba is over water, it’s quite possible.

Digital catch came the same year in the same location where I had a clear signal from KWTX in Killeen, TX! Later that afternoon I had KLBJ-FM from down the road in Austin in like a local along with several Waco, Austin, and San Antonio FMs

This was with a Channel Master “deep fringe” antenna mounted 30’ above ground...which in the flat land and water of the SC Lowcountry, is somewhat overkill.
 
When we lived down in the Ontario / Cucamonga ( Inland empire as they call it today in a Valley region east 40 or so miles from Los Angeles ), I was able to watch a Channel out of San Diego off some rabbit ears. It was fuzzy, but that station was cool. It had awesome cartoons on the weekdays, and it aired Knight Rider, the A-Team,..etc. Like all radio/TV transmissions, it came in better some days than others.

I'm looking at TV fool, and I just can't remember the station. I think it was channel 8 NBC http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
 
From Miami FL, my farthest E-skip was probably KVOO-2, Tulsa OK, in the 1960's, and my farthest tropo was probably the Atlanta SuperStation, in the 1980's. The later taught me that WTBS split their commercial feeds, as Ch 17 was running local adds, not the national ones that went to the sats.
 
seattlesarchiebunker said:
Sorry I’m a bit late to this party here...

Best analog catch on TV came right after analog shutdown here in the US (summer 2009) when I lived in Hilton Head, SC. I could routinely pick up (I believe) CMQ-TV Habana Cubavision on channel 6. It was definitely Cubavision and on channel 6. Otherwise, I’d routinely pick up either WKMG or WTVJ in analog during tropo season. Cuba is probably a bit too far for tropospheric propagation to Hilton Head, but given the empty band here in the US and the fact that most of the path from SC to Cuba is over water, it’s quite possible.

Digital catch came the same year in the same location where I had a clear signal from KWTX in Killeen, TX! Later that afternoon I had KLBJ-FM from down the road in Austin in like a local along with several Waco, Austin, and San Antonio FMs

This was with a Channel Master “deep fringe” antenna mounted 30’ above ground...which in the flat land and water of the SC Lowcountry, is somewhat overkill.
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Tropo to/from Cuba would be very possible.

Not TV, but I have received FM stations from Nebraska (via tropo) from Manistee, MI using just a stock Tecsun PL-390
 
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