The Magazine for TV and FM DXers September 2015 “Obviously, this station is run by WTFDA members.” - Karl Zuk (Picture from the Student Center at the University of Delaware) A WEAK JULY LEADS TO UNEXPECTED SKIP IN AUGUST MEXICO CONSIDERS ADDING NEW FMs TO MAJOR CITIES DXERS MAKE THEIR LAST CATCHES OF MEXICAN LOW-BAND TVs The Official Publication of the Worldwide TV-FM DX Association METEOR SHOWERS INSIDE THIS VUD CLICK TO NAVIGATE Orionids 02 The Mailbox 25 Coast to Coast TV DX OCT 4 - NOV 14 05 TV News 37 Northern FM DX 10 FM News 58 Southern FM DX Leonids 22 Photo News 68 DX Bulletin Board NOVEMBER 5 - 30 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, GREG CONIGLIO, KEITH McGINNIS AND MIKE BUGAJ. Editor and publisher: Ryan Grabow Treasurer: Keith McGinnis wtfda.org Webmaster: Tim McVey Forum Site Administrator: Chris Cervantez Editorial Staff: Jeff Kruszka, Keith McGinnis, Fred Nordquist, Nick Langan, Doug Smith, Bill Hale, John Zondlo and Mike Bugaj Website: www.wtfda.org; Forums: http://forums.wtfda.org September 2015 By now you have probably noticed something familiar in the new column header. It’s back. The graphics have been a little updated but it’s still the same old Mailbox, but it’s also Page Two. So take your pick. It’s both. Hard to believe that I’ve been doing this column since 2000, the same year I began as VUD editor which took me through to July 2014 when Ryan took over the job. Previous to me, a guy by the name of Bill Thompson published the VUD. I wonder if anyone has heard from Bill over the years and knows what he’s doing now. Bill is still on the membership list. Skip season is over now, I think. But this year you never know. I’ve experienced two FM openings in August and other DXers in the northeast have seen quite a bit more. Ontario, Western NY and Ohio seems to be the area with the big bullseye over it. Meanwhile other DXers are shaking their heads and wondering what skip season? Before we go any further I will mention that the joint 2015 Convention was a success and netted our club just over $200 to be deposited in the bank. That brings us to next year. WTFDA is going in with the NRC one more time for 2016. The next convention will be held in Kansas City, MO on September 9, 10 and 11. It will be hosted by NRCers Ernie Wesolowski from Omaha and Dale Hamm of Kansas City. As the months fly by we will have more information for you about this event, so stay tuned. This month we welcome Roy Crosier to the WTFDA. Roy lives in Warsaw, IN and his interests are FM DX and 30- 50mhz. He is also an amateur with the callsign AC9DN. Welcome Roy! We also welcome Rob Keeney to the WTFDA. Rob lives in South Carolina and I know he DXes FM because I used to see his name on FMList quite a bit. Glad you’re here, Rob. During the period from July 20th through August 15th, renewals arrived from Bob Rush (MA), Dwayne Whittingham (IL), Bob Hawkins (IN), Steve French (MN), Eugene Hinton (CA), Randy Miltier (OR), Rob Ross (ON), Roy Barstow (MA), Bob Timmerman (IN), Mike Perron (LA), Steve Walko (PA), Alan Michalek (MA), Stan Weisbeck (WA), Paul Swearingen (KS), John Callarman (TX), Ron Purdue (MN), Keith McGinnis (MA), Doug Smith (TN), John Zondlo (OK), Ron Rader (IA), Jeff Falconer (ON), Curtis Sadowski (IL), Steve Rich (IN), John Lentz (WI) and Nick Lombardi (GA). This is a big group this time and thank you all for your support of the WTFDA! SEPTEMBER 2015 ··· 2 ··· THE MAILBOX Here is a short story from Roy Barstow about the start of his DX career: I was around 10 when my older brother said Florida was coming in on the TV. Our family lived in Walpole, MA. This older brother never got married and took me under his wing, so to say. We both purchased the 70ft crank up tower and had it in the back yard. Also while young and living in Walpole logged 49 states on the am band, 2 from Hawaii. Went to Vietman came back and married 3 years later. My wife and I lived in Boston for she was a school teacher at the time. Found out about a program called 235 which was a government program where if you qualify you would pay so much according to your income and the government would pay the rest. The houses were on Heritage Circle, Teaticket. We lucked out and got the house they picked out for us. And the rest as they say is history. Now if I ever moved I would live close to the ocean in NC or SC. That’s Roy’s story and I would imagine that one of the HI stations Roy heard back then was KORL on 650khz because it’s what I heard a few times on Monday mornings around 4am when I was a kid of high school age growing up in the center of CT. THE INSIGNIA BOX Many of us own either the Insignia NS-DXA1 or the Zenith equivalent. Here’s some info from Carter Bays along with a photo that describes the anomaly. The Insignia digital converter (Zenith DTT-901) is generally regarded as one of the the best converter boxes for the TV DX hobbyist. It allows one to immediately identify a station; it timestamps the reception, has a (rudimentary) signal strength indicator, scroll thru actual RF frequencies, etc. But here is an issue that you might not be aware of: It occasionally misidentifies stations!! This appears to happen sporadically, but always involves two stations on the same RF channel, usually originating in different directions, one presenting a somewhat stronger signal than the other (though not necessarily). If you lock in on the stronger station, then rotate to the weaker one, the call letters of the stronger station will (sometimes) remain. The enclosed pix illustrates this phenomenon. Channel 34 is identified by the Insignia as WMMP, Charleston SC. But the antenna is pointed at Charlotte NC – the video is from WSOC!! On this particular day, I could also reverse the process and obtain a WSOC ID with a WMMP picture. If you suspect this is happening (or, just to be on the safe side during an extensive tropo opening) just flip up (or down) to the adjacent RF channel, then back. Usually this works; if it does not, power the Insignia off, then on again. This will cure the issue – unless of course you rotate the antenna and re-introduce it! It is possible that my antenna setup, which I turn by hand, exacerbates the issue, for I can rotate it 180 degrees in about 2 seconds. But that is another story. MEXICO FM STATION SPACING Over on Raymie Humbert’s area of the WTFDA Forums he recently wrote about the possibility of Mexico changing the station spacing for FM stations in metropolitan areas down to 400khz. Here is what he wrote: In the IFT magazine Gaceta IFT, one of the IFT committee members talked about the addition of the new FMs from the 2015 bid. This is the first new FM auction in Mexico in more than 20 years; it includes 191 stations — including 94 social use and 13 public use allotments — which represent a 20% increase on the 1,243 existing FM stations. The IFT received 600 applications/declarations of interest. However, the bigger change on the horizon is the potential change of station spacing from 800 kHz to 400 kHz, and for that we have more to read about from Gabriel Sosa Plata. SEPTEMBER 2015 ··· 3 ··· THE MAILBOX Things to note: Opposition to 400 kHz is two-pronged. One group says that short spacing does not work well with HD Radio. The other says that opening up more stations would mean smaller slices of a stagnant radio pie, and thus a potential economic crisis. The IFT, though, has a study conducted jointly by itself, the Universidad Iberoamericana and the IPN. The participation of Ibero in the study is important. They own XHUIA 90.9 Mexico City, which is one of two non-IMER permit stations to broadcast in HD Radio. They are bookended by XEDA and XHFAJ, each of which also is in HD Radio — and there's no interference between the stations, according to the study. The IPN also operates a "halfway" station in Mexico City, XHUPC 95.7. As for the market part, the IFT will likely defend itself by mentioning that all AM stations have the right to move to FM (and of course, in some markets there was not room for that). In fact, Sosa Plata says what I said a while back, that groups with no FM radio stations in an area (e.g. Radiorama, Radio S.A. in Mexico City) should be prioritized in such a process. He also says that the IFT, as the telecom regulator, must defend the rights of the audiences to pluralism in broadcasting and information. THE DATABASE For those who have never checked it out, here is a screengrab from the WTFDA FM Station Database showing what information is available there.