The Official Publication of the Worldwide TV-FM DX Association OCTOBER 2003 THE MAGAZINE FOR TV AND FM DXERS! J.Z. Installs An APS-9 Details inside IN THIS ISSUE: · FM Scoreboard · Doug Smith’s ATSC 101 · Gordon Simpkin’s First TVDX · And much, much more! COMPLETE COVERAGE OF E SKIP, TROPO, IBOC, DTV AND EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD OF TV AND FM DXING! TV and FM DXing was never so much fun! 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: TOM BRYANT, GREG CONIGLIO, BRUCE HALL, DAVE JANOWIAK AND MIKE BUGAJ. Editor and publisher: Mike Bugaj Treasurer: Dave Janowiak Webmaster: Tim McVey Editorial Staff: Steven Wiseblood, Victor Frank, George W. Jensen, Jeff Kruszka, Keith McGinnis, Fred Nordquist, Matt Sittel, Doug Smith, Thomas J. Yingling, Jr. and John Zondlo, Our website: www.anarc.org/wtfda ANARC Rep: Jim Thomas, Back Issues: Dave Nieman ELECTRONIC EDITION for OCTOBER 2003 _______________________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS Page Two 2 Mailbox 3 Finally! For those of you online with an email WTFDA DX Links…Russ Edmunds 5 address, we now offer a quick, convenient Photo News…Jeff Kruszka 9 and secure way to join or renew your ATSC Primer…Doug Smith 11 membership in the WTFDA from our page at: Eastern TV DX…Matt Sittel 13 http://fmdx.usclargo.com/join.html Western TV DX…Victor Frank 17 D100 Revised Ordering Info 20 Dues are $25 if paid using our Paypal Southern FM DX…John Zondlo 21 account. But of course you can always renew FM News…Steven Wiseblood 24 by check or money order for the usual price of Satellite News…George Jensen 26 just $24. Either way, it’s still a bargain! Northern FM DX…Keith McGinnis 27 My First TV DX…Gordon Simpkin 50 FM Scoreboard 52 The WTFDA TV Impressions Of a Set-Top Box 54 STATION GUIDE Editors and Submissions 55 It’s the most comprehensive listing of This month, Gordon Simpkin, former editor North American of the AIPA (American Ionospheric Television stations in Propagation Association) and Bob Cooper’s print! Just $23 US will favorite F2 TV DXer, begins some guest get you one. Mail your columns of his recollections of TV DXing from check or money order the 50s onward. I think everybody should find today. Make it payable them interesting. to Dave Janowiak and mail it to John Ebeling, Don’t forget to check out the first 9209 Vincent Avenue S., Bloomington, MN installment of Doug Smith’s ATSC Primer and 55431-2157. Get your WTFDA TV Station find out what ATSC means in the first place! Guide now before it goes out of print! Also check our Russ Edmund’s DX Links! ONLY A FEW LEFT! We’re loaded again for October. Thanks! FM ATLAS #19 Bruce Elving’s newest listing of FM Stations is just $23.00. Send your check or money order to FM Atlas, PO Box 336, Esko, MN 55733-9413 and keep it next to your radio or in the glove box of your car! Sportsradio! Jim Thomas tells you who’s on what station and when…basketball, football, baseball, hockey, racing…just about everything! Send your check for $12.00 to WTFDA, PO Box 501, Somersville, CT 06072 (checks payable to Dave Janowiak). 2 P.O. Box 501, Somersville, CT USA 06072 MIKE BUGAJ [email protected] OCTOBER 2003 Onyschuk, Marv Schults and host Bill Dvorak. Over the years, the support given the Madison Hello again, and welcome back to the DX GTG by WTFDA members has been Mailbox for October. As we look back to late outstanding, and the Madison group thanks August and early September we find a period them very much. of strong tropo taking place in various parts of Next year, the newest evolution in the North America. Hopefully in this VUD and the Madison GTG will begin. Tim Noonan, who next VUD we’ll all be able to read about it hosts the GTG in alternate years, recently because some of it was spectacular. moved to the Milwaukee area. Tim's We’d like to say thank you to all of the commitment to the GTG remains as strong as WTFDAers who contributed reports to the ever, and as a result next year's event will take various columns. In at least one case, an editor place in Milwaukee. If you are interested in has so many reports that he might be able to joining us and meeting your fellow WTFDA get caught up by November. Two nice things members, e-mail Tim at [email protected] , have been happening. First, we have lots of dx or contact Bill Dvorak [email protected] . to report and second, we’ve had lots or reporters reporting it. Thanks! WTFDA CONVENTION 2004 MEMBERS AND MORE The 2004 WTFDA Convention will be held in Omaha, NE on July 31- August 2. Your co- Let’s start this month off right by welcoming hosts for the event will be Matthew Sittel and S.P. McGreevy Productions of Keeler, CA into Michael Hawk. They're in the early stages of the fold. And on the renewal side, we say planning what will no doubt be an enjoyable thanks for staying around to William time for you as well as your family in the Mitchell(OH), Howard Krinsky (CA)(who Omaha area. There's plenty to see and do renewed for six years, by the way), John locally, and with any luck there will be DX to Ridge(NY), Charles Tumosa (MD), Melvin enjoy that weekend too. A web page will be set Dishong(GA), Wolfgang Schneiter (CA), up soon announcing progress in establishing Larry Weil (NH), James Gould (IN), Greg meeting locations and activities. Start making Barker (IN) and William Hein (VT). Thanks to your plans nowto be in Omaha next summer! everybody for writing a check or visiting Paypal. TRANSLATORS AND DTV A quick check of the members shows John Vervoort returning to Brooklyn, NY and Greg Here’s a question that turned up on the Coniglio settling down in Alden, NY. WTFDA list about translators. The question: MADISON GET-TOGETHER And another REALLY STUPID question: what about existing translators? Will they all need to be replaced with DTV transmitters, or will they Bill Dvorak writes “The 10th Annual Madison simply rebroadcast whatever they receive, i.e., Get-together for DXers and Radio Enthusiasts will the digital signal from the mother station is over, and a great time was had by all! This pass through the translator as a digital signal, year's event, held on Saturday August16, 2003, and be received that way? I am thinking of was hosted by Bill and Nina Dvorak at their those areas that are peppered with translators: home, 501 Algoma Street Madison WI 53704- Utah, the other intermountain states, the 4812. The temperature peaked at a hot 93 Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville market in degrees, but the DX talk was even hotter! NC/SC/GA, etc. A record 29 DXers from five states attended this year's event, breaking the old record of 26 And the answer from Doug Smith: set last year. Among the attendees were 10 WTFDA members: Bill Eckberg, Bruce (and The FCC has just (last week) opened an Carol) Elving, George Greene, Neil Kazaross, inquiry on this issue. They acknowledge the Dave Legler, John Lentz, Frank Merrill, Ken 3 existence of two possible types of DTV 3255. translator. One would really be technically identical to analog translators – it would pick up LONGTIME DXERS PASSES whatever comes in on the input channel, convert it to the output channel frequency, Ralph Strobel sends us the following: amplify it, and pass it back to the transmit Longtime DXer and former WTFDA member, antenna. If designed properly, such an analog Bob Zent, Warren, IN passed away on August translator should pass digital signals OK as 20 due to cancer. He had attended a number well. of conventions in previous years. His funeral The other would be a "remodulating" was held in Delphos, OH August 22. He was translator. It would decode the DTV signal just 50. Our condolences go out to Bob’s family. like a digital TV set, then re-encode it and transmit on the output channel. MOVED IN AND READY TO DX The Commission acknowledges that remodulating translators will be MUCH more Bill Hepburn just moved into a house in expensive to build, but on the other hand Grimsby, Ontario. He writes: I found an old suggests that a single remodulating translator VHF yagi already set up in my attic crawlspace could carry several different primary stations on in the new house. Bonus! Plus I'm currently different virtual channels. For example, five using a 4-bay UHF on the living room floor. I'm analog translators exist at Bryson City, North up about 325 feet above the lake to the Carolina: north...and am blocked by a 30 foot hill to the south (I should be able to overcome with a 60 W05AR w/WYFF-4 foot tower). I am also partially blocked from my W08AN w/WLOS-13 nearest locals only a few miles away; 11/36 W11AN w/WSPA-7 Hamilton. In fact, 11 often has CCI, and I W46AX w/WUNF-33 frequently get 11 Muskoka & 11 Kingston W69CN w/WHNS-21 breaking thru even on rabbit ears and during dead-band cx.