For FM antenna specs, tuner mod info, phasing, filter info, look under LINKS above.
NEW DTV LOWBAND Es PHOTOS FOR 2020 ARE HERE
**New September 7 Super Tropo DTV Photos Are HERE**
September 2020
Here we are. Summer is almost over. The skip season sucked, although not quite at 2019 levels. I haven't seen any tropo around here, but of course the UHF TV bands are full and I can't get myself out of bed until almost 9 when most tropo is gone for the morning anyway. Oh, well.June-July 2020
I changed SDRs in March, after the urging of two of my friends. I'm now the owner of an RSPDuo
from SDRPlay. This radio has been out for two years now but I just got around to buying one. The thing that
makes this SDR different is that it has two tuners, and you can phase one against the other to
null (phase) out your local and semi-local stations. It just works great in nuking HD sidebands and
it's also easier to create a null than a Bolin Phase Box or anything else. I've already used it
during skip openings to hear skip through my local HD sidebands. It works very well. I've already
gone through an RSP-1, an RSP-2 and an Elad FDM-S2. I keep the RSP-2 for a spare and use the Elad
strictly for medium wave (AM) DXing in the winter. I no longer have the RSP-1. How many SDRs do
you need, anyway?
Also I have two screengrabs of new lowband DTV stations. Both were seen recently on ch2 during
skip openings in late May and June. With luck I hope to see more. So far I've seen thirteen.
See the link above.
FM skip has been running slightly better than last year, so far. The best skip event up to this point has been
on May 20th from 6pm to 8pm. Very minor events were seen on 6/3, 6/9 and 6/15. A slightly stronger
event was noticed on June 15th from 9:30 to 12:45pm off and on. I caught 7 new stations during that
opening. The last Es opening noticed here was on June 26 to Florida on FM around 2pm for 30 minutes.
There were no Es openings noticed in July 2020. I'd rate this skip season a D-, after giving it an F last year.
March 2020
I've just renewed this domain for another year. I'll be around for another twelve months.
THE STORY BEHIND THE PICTURE. The TV antenna you see at the top of this page is an Archer VU-190.
It was originally sold by Radio Shack as a VHF-UHF combo. This antenna is brand new and has been
sitting in the basement for the past 5-6 years until just recently when I decided to put it together
and do something with it. I decided to try it as a phase antenna along with my APS-13 and Bolin
phase box. The UHF elements were removed. The result is an antenna that works really well on FM
and works fine as a phase antenna. It has enough gain that it does not need a pre-amp between it
and the input to the combiner. The antenna was bought at a yard sale for just a few dollars, sold
by a person who either didn't know what it was, or just didn't care.
HELLO!
Hello! My name is Mike and I'm an old fart. I'm also a DXer. I began with AM radio back in the 1960s
when I was in high school. In my Junior or Senior year I received a Zenith FM table radio for Christmas
and discovered FM DXing. Around that same time I noticed skip on TV in the summer. Unfortunately, that
hooked me for the rest of my life. I'm trying to find a cure for this horrible hobby and I'm having
some success, thanks in part to the FCC and the TV repack and the placement of hundreds of LPFMs and
translators in every open spot on the FM dial. Oh, and the IBOC. The HD sidebands are a big part of the cure.
I feel that sometime I will be cured of the damned hobby of DXing and I'll finally begin to find the
mind that I lost due to this cursed affliction.
FM BANDSCAN FROM NORTHERN CONNECTICUT IN THREE PARTS
Thanks for stopping by! Hope you found something worthwhile here. Come back again because who knows what I'll be rambling on about next time!
©2015-2020 M. Bugaj No reprints of any page on this site without permission.
Updated 09-01-2020.
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