DX Season

[Apsattv]

Anyone seeing any DX yet?

on the VHF or UHF bands?

[shadownz]

Clarify for us un-educated please :)

[Apsattv]

Long distance reception of NZ or Australian Analog or Digital TV on the VHF or UHF tv bands.

A regular thing at this time of the year.

[Apsattv]

I should add a good indicator is reception of out of town FM radio stations

[Geekster]

No TV stations, but a couple weeks ago, picked up a couple auzzie AM's. Also hit some asian station, sounded korean, but I'm not sure.

[Apsattv]

Do you mean Aussie FM's?

You can listen to Aussie A.M stations pretty much any night of the week any day of the year.

[Geekster]

Nah, I meant AM's. I thought it was pretty great considering the aerial on the thing...

[Thunderflash]

I should add a good indicator is reception of out of town FM radio stations
Hi, Just found this forum, I don't do TVDX but I keep an ear out on the FM band for any DX. There were 2 times around mid Dec 09 that I hear Aussie coming in. Nothing from AK for a while but when it does open I find BIG 106FM (106.2) to be the best signal from up there.

[Apsattv]

Auckland UHF TV use to be good when the band was open to Nelson. Not seen it in a while though.

I have no doubt digital would play when the conditions are right as the analogues use to be full colour. Even with clean stereo audio!

[Thunderflash]

Back in the early 90's when I living on the top of the Motuere Hills off the inland highway I had a UHF beam up facing Wellington, was able to watch the free Wellington UHF channels + TAB. Also remember being able to watch the runway at the Nelson Airport, they had a camera transmitter at the far end back then.

[Apsattv]

I lived in Quarantine road, of course I came across that airport cam on channel 39/40/41 around there..

[Apsattv]

What kind of antenna setup did you have?? any google co-ordinates of the location?

I would of thought you had more chance of Wharite, not Wellington..

[Thunderflash]

Back then I had a high gain UHF yagi fixed pointing toward Wellington in line with Nelson, (not sure how many elements it had) feeding into a masthead amp. There were times when I did pick up some dx tv (from unknown locations). I didn't follow dxtv, When the bands were open I spent most of that time DXing the FM freqs.

Do you know if the airport still use those freqs? I imagine 39 will now be off.

I don't have the co-ordinates, but I was located a little less that one km past Redwood cellars on the south side of the Inland highway.

[Apsattv]

Ive not seen anything from Wellington. Nelson is too sheltered under the hills.

Although some up Washington Valley area get a signal coming through the Doubles. A friend use to get Tv3 there way before Nelson had it.

Don't know about the airport signal, I've moved to Stoke.

[Thunderflash]

Wellington was were the signals were coming from. Very strong on top of the Moutere Hills (Inland Highway) First picked them up off rabbit ears, then put up an exteral uhf antenna to improve the reception. FM radio from Wellington also came in strong there. Under normal conditions FM radio from Palmerston North was very weak at that location.

[Apsattv]

Interesting it sounds like a hotspot. I assume it was from Kaukau? I guess you could of got Sky?

just how clear were the pics? full colour etc?

[Thunderflash]

It was KauKau, I could have got sky if I had a decoder. The audio on all sky chans was very clear, As for pic's, they were in colour with a hint of back ground snow. The TAB/History chan and a local Wellington chan (forget the name) were the strongest free to air ones at the time, if I remember correctly there were a few others that were down in the back ground noise.

[Apsattv]

Can you remember the model of masthead amp and the antenna you used?

See if you can find the location on Google earth and provide the co-ordinates?

I can remember the pub in Motueka having a huge UHF antenna on the roof a few year back. Also JSF had a tower up broadcasting Tv3 many years back before it came to Nelson.

[Thunderflash]

The masthead amp was a GME Kingray MHW34. No idea on the antenna used, I know it was to long to transport so I cut it in half and made it so it could easily be clipped back together. Got it from Dick Smith in 1991 for around $100 on sale down from $160, I remember thinking what a bargin. I was living at this location from 1991 - 1994. Has for Google earth co-ordinates, I can find this out next week.

[wiilliiss]

there used to be a pub in palmerston north that had 4 ax 391 or 91 ele aerials stacked horizontally and a 45db nippon amp just for trackside from kaukau, apparantly pix were a bit scratchy but it worked....all that just for trackside.

[Apsattv]

I bet they made back whatever cost the day it went live.

[kiwisteve]

Just a few hours from ABC NSW VHF CH2 probably Gore Hill TX
around new year

[wiilliiss]

and kiwisteve can pick out abc on vhf oz ch 2 against those strong ngarara ch 3 tv 2 signals?:D

[kiwisteve]

Strong signals here from Ngarara ?? well you must be joking :D:D the UHFs are just visible in the noise and VHF is so poor I use Wharite . Plus I have a 5 el yagi on a rotor pointing to Aust . Being side on there is really no sig on it from Ngarara to be a problem !!

[wiilliiss]

so kiwisteve must be more towards te horo, although going through otaki see a lot of y11 aerials aimed south getting ngarara & kaukau on 9,5,11h.

some years ago did get prime for 1 brother on paraparaumu beach no prob 6,8,10v tunapo & 60h kaukau small aerials,other brother was a few streets south of ngarara using kaukau on 1,5,11 and 11 was barely 40, ngarara uhf about mid 40s although whariti 7,11 were approaching 40.
best could do for them was uhf forest hill for better tv 3 on 31 and only had vhf tv so used vcr.
so even then thought what a waste ngarara is.

[Thunderflash]

Can you remember the model of masthead amp and the antenna you used?

See if you can find the location on Google earth and provide the co-ordinates?

I can remember the pub in Motueka having a huge UHF antenna on the roof a few year back. Also JSF had a tower up broadcasting Tv3 many years back before it came to Nelson.

Here is the Google earth co-ordinates to my location back then:
41-17-56-90S
173-03-30-50E