Mountaintop Tv reception, fact or fiction?

[vibe]

There's a TV commercial that touts golf's worldwide appeal . A guy (dressed in all sorts of winter gear) climbs up a mountain with a TV antenna (looks like a single channel yagi) while his firneds are in a tent with a small TV. He's standing there on top of an open ledge and communicating with his "friends" in the warm tent on a cell phone. He rotates the antenna until a signal is locked in which allows his budies to watch the golf while he is slowly freezing his ass off. Maybe he drew the short straw, maybe he isn't a golf fan.
Is it possible to receive TV reception in this manner on a seemingly remote mountaintop?

 

[Tom Wells]

Yes, line of sight reception on mountaintops gives insane dx on anything above HF.
You can step from one side of the mountain to the other and get a whole different set of stations.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

Yes, line of sight reception on mountaintops gives insane dx on anything above HF.
You can step from one side of the mountain to the other and get a whole different set of stations.

Similar thing happens when driving along Skyline Drive in Virginia. Drive a few miles & you'll go from one clear FM signal to another on the same frequency...fun for DXing, frustrating if you just want to listen to the radio.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Yes, line of sight reception on mountaintops gives insane dx on anything above HF.
You can step from one side of the mountain to the other and get a whole different set of stations.

Similar thing happens when driving along Skyline Drive in Virginia. Drive a few miles & you'll go from one clear FM signal to another on the same frequency...fun for DXing, frustrating if you just want to listen to the radio.

I'm going to give FM a try from the top of Pike's Peak in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately Denver and Colorado Springs have pretty much blanketed all frequencies, but there are a few blanks for 200 miles in all directions, which will give me a real good set of frequencies to explore.

 

[KYradioJake]

You can also get signals if you are far out in the ocean too, right? ( I mean about 100 or so miles from a city on the mainland and if you're out on some island that far away you can still receive the stations from the mainland pretty clearly since there aren't any obstructions over the ocean.

 

[BRNout]

You can also get signals if you are far out in the ocean too, right? ( I mean about 100 or so miles from a city on the mainland and if you're out on some island that far away you can still receive the stations from the mainland pretty clearly since there aren't any obstructions over the ocean.

The effect is much better for AM than it is for FM. Salt water is a great conductor for AM signals, allowing them to travel way beyond the horizon. Literally hundreds of miles, even during the daytime.

FM and TV frequencies, on the other hand, are somewhat limited to line of sight reception. Even though you are removing obstructions by traveling into the ocean (and getting less co-channel interference), you will still be limited to a reception range of 60-80 miles from the transmitter site in most cases (the distance to the horizon is something like 63 miles). Exceptions would include certain superstations (with extra tall tx locations or hi power or both), which will travel a bit farther and atmospheric effects (tropospheric ducting, etc.). Both effects also occur on land, though you may get a bit more atmospheric signal bounce or ducting over the water thanks to the moisture.

Overall, a mountaintop is far better for FM and TV because the distance to the horizon is increased.

 

[RBA]

You can also get signals if you are far out in the ocean too, right? ( I mean about 100 or so miles from a city on the mainland and if you're out on some island that far away you can still receive the stations from the mainland pretty clearly since there aren't any obstructions over the ocean.

The effect is much better for AM than it is for FM. Salt water is a great conductor for AM signals, allowing them to travel way beyond the horizon. Literally hundreds of miles, even during the daytime.

FM and TV frequencies, on the other hand, are somewhat limited to line of sight reception. Even though you are removing obstructions by traveling into the ocean (and getting less co-channel interference), you will still be limited to a reception range of 60-80 miles from the transmitter site in most cases (the distance to the horizon is something like 63 miles). Exceptions would include certain superstations (with extra tall tx locations or hi power or both), which will travel a bit farther and atmospheric effects (tropospheric ducting, etc.). Both effects also occur on land, though you may get a bit more atmospheric signal bounce or ducting over the water thanks to the moisture.

Overall, a mountaintop is far better for FM and TV because the distance to the horizon is increased.

I use to patrol atop of Kaena Point on Oahu. I would recieve all kinds of radio stations from the west coast. (AM stations)

 

[BobOnTheJob]

I heard 1070 & 640 from LA in downtown Honolulu on a rental car radio. IIRC, the distance was 2400 miles. Hawaii's AM radio dial is a lot different than the jumbled mess we hear at night in Indiana.

 

[mimo]

The best for tv/fm dx is an airplane. The height alone gives you the ability to recieve signals FAR past their normal fade out range on the ground. When flying west out of O'hare, I set the radio to 94.1 and it wasn't any more than a couple of minutes after take off that KRNA Iowa City came in Clear as a bell, and was in for a couple of hours. Generally you get stations for a go0d 300 miles or so. If only there was a way to do this on a tv and not get caught by the flight staff, but I DX on airplanes everytime I fly, and the dial is NEVER empty.

 

[RadioStationDudeUSA]

If only there was a way to do this on a tv and not get caught by the flight staff, but I DX on airplanes everytime I fly, and the dial is NEVER empty.

you DX on an airplane?While there's probably no real danger, you just lvoe to disobey rules, eh? i hope they catch you next time and throw you off the flight!

 

[BIG APE]

I do it all the time also.. Ya think they'll throw me out of my own airplane?

 

[rbrucecarter5]

The best for tv/fm dx is an airplane. The height alone gives you the ability to recieve signals FAR past their normal fade out range on the ground. When flying west out of O'hare, I set the radio to 94.1 and it wasn't any more than a couple of minutes after take off that KRNA Iowa City came in Clear as a bell, and was in for a couple of hours. Generally you get stations for a go0d 300 miles or so. If only there was a way to do this on a tv and not get caught by the flight staff, but I DX on airplanes everytime I fly, and the dial is NEVER empty.

In these days of terrorist scares, I wouldn't feel comfortable breaking any of the rules - for being mistaken for an infidel that flys planes into buildings. I'd be prepared to be wrestled to the floor and beat up by other passengers if I were to intentionally jam cockpit equipment with my radio.

 

[vibe]

I think we all generally agree that dx ing from a plane is risky, if not illegal but the info on the thread so far has answered my question. Previous posts indicate that 200 mi DX from the top of Pikes peak (14000 ft?) is not out of the question and that 300 mi DX from a plane (3000 ft?) has been documented.
The commercial in question implies that the guys with the tent/ antenna are somewhere between those elevations so with a single channel yagi (or a multchannel antenna) it certainly IS possible to get super long distance reception OTA. I thought there was some sort of max like 100-150 mi. And the possiblity of a specific station (they were using a single channel yagi) operating within their range seemed improbable.
I'd sure like to be the guy that was watching, however.
I thought of this post as we were on the top of Hogback Mtn (halfway between Brattleboro VT and Bennington VT) on Rt 9 and the FM reception was super. We even caught some of the Burlington stations, even w/ a hill blocking the signals drom due N). And this was only a 2000 ft hill (oops mountain).
I wonder if anyone HAS Dx'd on top of a real mountain.

 

[mimo]

as rediculous as this may sound, I've always wanted to DX from the top of Mt. Everest, partly for the view, and partly to see what would come in there.

 

[mimo]

If only there was a way to do this on a tv and not get caught by the flight staff, but I DX on airplanes everytime I fly, and the dial is NEVER empty.

you DX on an airplane?While there's probably no real danger, you just lvoe to disobey rules, eh? i hope they catch you next time and throw you off the flight!

That was completely uncalled for, Last time I flew, at Christmas, the flight attendants had no problem with me using my radio on the plane, as long as it wasn't during take off or landing. Rules are less restrictive in Canada. I don't love to disobey rules, but your post was completely unnecessary, and quite rude.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

I knew a guy who owned his own Lear Jet & he DXed from it all the time. He said that flying 30,000' above a class B FM (92.9 in South Bend,IN), he heard signals hundreds of miles away on the same channel & no trace of the local. I tend to believe this as I engineered a stunt where the morning show at WENS/Indy jumped from a small plane. We ran into trouble when we got almost straight above the Class B WENS antenna & WENS was wiped out by Columbus, Ohio on the same channel (97.1). That was just a few thousand feet up & Indy to Columbus is in the 170 mile range.

Line of sight formula is the square root of 1.5 x height squared. This is based on flat ground. Example...a set of eyes at 6' can see 3 miles of water. Someone on Lake Michigan with eyes at water level can see a 1500' tower top in Chicago 47.4 miles out. If a 14,000' mountain were at the ocean, the mountain could be seen for 145 miles on a clear day. All sorts of variables here...in the real world, there's no sea level near Pike's Peak and Lake Michigan isn't at sea level, so in the Chicago case, the height is above ground, whereas Pike's Peak is above sea level. Then there's the fact that almost no one's eyes are at sea or ground level. Further complicating it is that radio waves at VHF bend to some degree, so the above formula is for visual line of sight. Radio line of sight's formula is a little more generous...square root of 2 x height. How this works when the receive antenna is "x" number of feet off the ground, I'm not sure. But one would think that a receive antenna with a radio line of sight of 12 miles & a transmit antenna with a radio line of sight of 47 miles would yield a strong signal at 59 miles...with considerable greater "dx" range.

 

[tomservo]

Fact!

A good many years ago I brought my lil' cheap portable color TV to the top of Mt. Cheaha in eastern Alabama to see what was present... Boy, was I surprised! The UHF band was very busy, with every station from Montgomery, Auburn/Columbus, Birmingham and WTBS-17 from Atlanta all coming in clear as could be. Since the mountaintop park was nearly deserted, I drove along the scenic ridge road near the crest with the TV on and some signals amazingly didn't break up or flutter.

To my amazement, the entire Huntsville area lineup was present and very clear; it's an all UHF market 95 miles away.

Just with the whip antenna, without getting out of my car, the dial looked like this:
7, 10, 13, 17, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 33, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46, 48, 54, 60, 66, 68

As you guys can see, the TV had poor VHF inside the car, but UHF was awesome. The maximum distance I seemed to get was 95 miles, but that was good enough for 5 TV markets.

FWIW DXing from a plane is pretty much harmless, and doing so in your own private plane is okay as far as I know. I'd love to get a chance to do TV DX from a jet; I did some AM/FM on a night flight that was mostly empty once and it was a blast. It's amazing how dead the AM dial is 35,000 ft up. (GPS works good and is fun to watch, too!)

 

[vibe]

I have one of theose HH TV's and the gain/reception of Ch 2-6 is MUCH poorer than 7-13 and the entire UHF band. I've watched it from near Ocheechobee FL while camping and got a bunch of UHF from Orlando, Melborne, Ft. Myers, Naples, West Palm but only 2-3 stations on VHF from West Palm and Ft. Myers all on the upper VHF (7-13) band.
But there ain't no mountains by lake O.. so I'll apologize for being slightly off post.

 

[Sgeirk]

Randy Michaels, when he had the corporate Clear Channel plane. Heh. Anyway, he used to listen to Atlanta just after he left Cincy. Supposedly.

 

[MotoMuzak]

Several years back one of my neighbours (good friend of our family) had a little Cessna airplane.....one time the neighbour, a couple of school friends of mine and I were flying to Pendleton, OR from Vancouver, WA (Gotta go to the Roundup in September!) and listened to KMXO 96.1 from Olympia, WA (a soft rock/AC station) on a Kenwood car radio he installed in there himself, the whole flight. Never heard it come in as clear and as consistently as I heard that day/night!! (Note that on the east side of the Cascades FM DXing of stations on the western side of OR/WA, save for tropo, is incredibly difficult below about 300' above river level or so. Once we dropped down far enough to begin landing 96.1 just completely fizzled away into static until we took off again much later that night.)

Now, at home on the ground, where I am at I can sort of get it to come in on my little Sony ICF36 IF I am (1) lucky, (2) have my antenna pointed in just the right direction and (3) have the SCA demodulator switched off! (Just for the record, 96.1's 92kHz currently appears to be transmitting some sort of RTTY data.)