The Magazine for TV and FM DXers May 2019 The Official Publication of the Worldwide TV-FM DX Association In This Issue Measuring Distances with Google Maps Enough is Enough? Next Generation TV THE VHF-UHF DIGEST THE WORLDWIDE TV-FM DX ASSOCIATION Serving the UHF-VHF Enthusiast THE VHF-UHF DIGEST IS THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE WORLDWIDE TV-FM DX ASSOCIATION DEDICATED TO THE OBSERVATION AND STUDY OF THE PROPAGATION OF LONG DISTANCE TELEVISION AND FM BROADCASTING SIGNALS AT VHF AND UHF. WTFDA IS GOVERNED BY A BOARD OF DIRECTORS: DOUG SMITH, KEITH McGINNIS, JIM THOMAS AND MIKE BUGAJ. Treasurer: Keith McGinnis wtfda.org/info Webmaster: Tim McVey Forum Site Administrator: Chris Cervantez Editorial Staff: Jeff Kruszka, Keith McGinnis, Fred Nordquist, Nick Langan, Doug Smith, John Zondlo and Mike Bugaj Your WTFDA Booard of Directors Doug Smith Mike Bugaj Keith McGinnis Jim Thomas [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Renewals by mail: Send to WTFDA, P.O. Box 501, Somersville, CT 06072. Check or MO for $10 payable to WTFDA. Renewals by Paypal: Send your dues ($10USD) from the Paypal website to [email protected] or go to https://www.paypal.me/WTFDA and type 10.00 or 20.00 for two years in the box. Our WTFDA.org website webmaster is Tim McVey, [email protected]. Our WTFDA Forums webmaster is Chris Cervantez, [email protected]. Fred Nordquist is in charge of club statistics at [email protected] Our email reflector is on Googlegroups. To join, send an email to [email protected] Visit our club website at http://www.wtfda.org . Participate in our forums at http://forums.wtfda.org. Our real-time (prop logger) bulletin board is located at http://wtfdadxbb.vci.net. Only WTFDA members can participate. You can find WTFDA on Facebook. Our group is called TV and FM Dxing. This is a public group. We also have a private group called WTFDA. This group is just for WTFDA Members. The WTFDA FM Database is administered and updated by your fellow WTFDA members. It is completely free to use.You can find it at http://db.wtfda.org. Only the FCC and Radio-Locator are listed before us in Google searches. VHF-UHF Digest 2 May 2019 DUES RECEIVED 23rd. But unless you were reading about it on the TV and FM DXing group you probably DATE NAME S/P EXP didn’t know about it. 3/29/2019 Jason Hustedt DE 3-20 One FM Dxer in Reynosa, MEX had FM 3/31/2019 Chris Cervantez TX 3-20 loggings from LA, MS, AL and FL, on April 23rd 3/31/2019 Larry Kenney CA 5-21 with his longest log being WUSF in Pensacola 4/3/2019 Adam Ebel VA 3-20 at 720 miles. 4/4/2019 Chris Dunne FL 3-20 Also, Chris Lucas in Poughkeepsie, NY 4/3/2019 Larry Weisberg NH 5-20 reported tropo from Western New York and the 4/5/2019 David Pierce VA 4-20 th 4/9/2019 Steve Solomon MA 2-20 Toronto area on the morning of April 25 . We 4/12/2019 Andrew Knafel OH 4-20 will have a screengrab of his post to TV & FM 4/12/2019 Jon Hamilton ON 4-20 Dxing a little later in this VUD. 4/18/2019 David Hansen TX 5-21 WTFDA member Dave Bright reports on the 4/18/2019 Frank Adem OD 4-20 TV and FM DXing list: “The Tallahassee 4/18/2019 Allan Dunn MA 3-20 market finally has its first HD signal on FM, 4/20/2019 Michael Beu TX 4-20 107.1 WGMY Thomasville, Georgia. HD-2 is 4/19/2019 Christian Ferland QC 4-20 currently parallel to 1270 AM WTLY 4/24/2019 Pete Taylor WA 3-20 Tallahassee (and its translator “105.3 The Beat”).” 4/25/2019 William Thompson MD 4-20 And from Cordcutters News regarding ATSC 3.0: On the NAB show floor, AirwazTV had Thanks t all of you for your support of the several demos of the tuner in action. There WTFDA! was an Nvidia Shield running showing a live TROPO! ATSC 3.0 broadcast using the tuner and even a TiVo DVR recording ATSC 3.0 broadcasts. Right now, the cost is over $800 for the full developer kit, but a retail version will reportedly be a lot less expensive. Sinclair has promised that they will seed the markets they launch ATSC 3.0 in this year with a “cheap” ATSC 3.0 tuner. Some sources have said they expect the tuners to get down to below $50, but for now, mass production on a consumer tuner has not started. Once again it was a slow month with no DX reports of any type received. Nick Langan is helping Jim Thomas on the WTFDA database keep up with all the new Mexican FM stations and changes. Thanks Nick! CU next month! There was some really good tropo happening in the Gulf area around April 21st through the VHF-UHF Digest 3 May 2019 AT 815 FM RADIO STATIONS AND 260 AM STATIONS Can You Say "Enough is Enough"?? Jim Thomas I learned very recently, though two years late, the government licensing office CONATEL Honduras made a bold statement in May 2017, by passing a bill that slammed the door on any new broadcast licenses. NOT just on FM, but FM, AM, and even TV! Holy cow! Just to keep things in perspective, Honduras geographically in comparison, is smaller than the state of Kansas. I became aware of this decision three days ago. In early 2017 and up until early summer, I was deeply involved in entering the Honduras FM stations in the WTFDA FM database. Erika Speers, one of the attorneys and legal document managers with CONATEL, was communicating with me two and three times per week via email, sending me PDF documents as I requested them. Not once did she mention this decision to me. Possibly she wasn't allowed to. Seeing how it had been two years since the FM radio stations from Honduras were entered into the FM database, I figured I was overdue in checking for updates. I started checking for any FM activity for Honduras a couple weeks ago and kept noticing the LATEST FM actions or license approvals were in 2017. There isn't anything newer. I started digging through the CONATEL/SITAE website, looking at the PDF files available for download. I was trying to see if I could learn anything about NEW licenses. This past Saturday, BOOM! There it was. I found it. It was the document that had been published in the La Gaceta, the legal paper in Tegucigalpa. I downloaded the document and sent it to Raymie Humbert and Jonathan Hamilton, WTFDA members who are both fluent in Spanish. I asked them to go to page three, to the lower right column, read that particular information, and then give me their take on the matter. This is what Raymie said, " Nice catch. Seems like they suspended all awards except repeaters saying they had too many applicants for remaining frequencies and in TV the market was very fragmented preventing the creation of serious economies of scale." And this is what Jon's take was on the information- "Hi Jim, Article 1 orders the suspension of granting new FM permits and licenses, effective on the start date of the resolution, in broadcast areas 1-9. Article 2 deals with allowing the continued use of previously allocated frequencies, granted they do not cause interference. LPFMs are not allowed to use repeaters. Article 3 of the resolution says it will go into effect on the day it is published in La Gaceta (12 May, 2017). That's my take, anyways. Hope this helps! - Jon" In the words of Paul Harvey, "And now you know the rest of the story. Good day!" VHF-UHF Digest 4 May 2019 USING GOOGLE MAPS TO DETERMINE HOME ADDRESS LATITUDE & LONGITUDE Steps to find Latitude and Longitude coordinates for your home address: 1) Go to Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/ 2) Zoom into your home address location as close as the magnifier will allow; Selected location 3) RIGHT CLICK on your home address with your PC mouse pointer. Box will RIGHT click on location with the pop up as illustrated (Figure 1); PC mouse will bring up this box. Click on *What’s here?* 4) Follow directions on each map to arrive at the Latitude and Longitude Then proceed to for your home location. The Latitude next illustration and Longitude format as illustrated in Figure 3 must be used to match FIGURE 1 the Latitude & Longitude format that is used in the WTFDA FM Database. TIP: Google Maps allows you to zoom into your home location close enough that you can get EXACT coordinates for where your antennas are located on your property. This may require Selected location switching to satellite view so you can actually see your house and items on your property. Next, LEFT click on this GPS address- Click here Then proceed to FIGURE 2 next illustration Selected location This is the Latitude and Longitude for your selected location. The *usable* Latitude and Longitude for the next step would be- 40:41:21.3 N 74:02:40.4 W This is the required format for use on the NOAA website and matches the WTFDA FM Database format for determining Great Circle global distances. You may want to record this information with your logbook notes so that you don’t have to repeat this step in the future.