2023 TV Antennas & Equipment

[Jim Thomas]

Amazing stuff Bill. My guess is your unID between KUQQ and KCKC in the recording is WQLF Lena, Illinois (NW corner of state), which plays classic rock (the Pat Benatar song). Imaging is Q 102.

I wish I had your type of setup for antennas but I live right across from a national airport and it probably wouldn't be allowed.

[WHJ]

Thanks for the WQLF suggestion--that seems likely. It was the one station that I could not positively identify. It was there and then gone--probably via meteor scatter.

As expected, the others recorded are almost always received with my new antenna.

I felt good about just receiving KPUL 101.7 6kW ERP in Winterset, IA. That brought back memories of my running their full marathon race as part of their Covered Bridge Festival. Not having hosted that since 1983, they have downgraded the distance to just a 5k. Winterset's other claim to fame is being the birthplace of John Wayne and having his birthplace museum.

[WHJ]

I recently completed mounting and cabling my TV reception antennas for the 2024 season. Given the number of components, I also just completed documenting that wiring. To better compare my different UHF receive antennas I made a reception strength comparison of KMCI in Kansas City (190 miles away from me). To better understand the signal comparison the receive path from the antennas is shown below.

Note two labeled Auto-Switches. Those are set to normally alternate between two different UHF antennas feeding their separate HD HomeRun tuners as shown above. For the KMCI receive comparison, those auto-switches were set to always feed the better antenna for KC reception to the tuners. The UHF antennas feeding the tuners during the receive comparison are highlighted in green. The VHF low and high antennas are also shown above.

Last year I had a bunch of single channel selectable band pass filters available to switch into the receive path. The UHF filters were mostly Microwave Filter Company 3278(4) filters. 3278.pdf (microwavefilter.com) I decided to this year try Televes 531981 AGC Combiners instead. They have up to 32 single channel filters. Due to not wanting to use them on the low VHF channels due to their low dynamic range there, that provided me with a filter available for each channel being used. The 531981’s have superb dynamic range on the UHF channels, adequate dynamic range for the high VHF channels, but inadequate range for the low VHF channels. HL-SJ frequency combiners are a better option. Pico Macom TruSpec ATX HL-SJ, VHF high-low separator / combiner – Ness Electronics, Inc
Due to the reduced input sensitivity of the 531981, it needs a preamplifier before it for weak signal reception. And its output level needs to be reduced unless you have significant loss in filters and/or muti-splitters or the HD HomeRun tuner will be overloaded.

The updated KMCI receive comparison is shown below.

[WHJ]

Reference my 10-20-23 recording on message #15, the mystery station on my 360-degree antenna rotation was finally figured out. I added it (K271CT) to the list, plus 4 others (6 - 9) heard on that frequency after the sweep:

1. KUQQ Milford, IA 196 miles at 30˚ azimuth
2. K271CT (250 watts) Creston, IA 138 miles at 85˚
3. KCKC Kansas City, MO 187 miles at 133˚
4. KZSN Hutchinson, KS 222 miles at 187˚
5. KZMC McCook, NE 200 miles at 256˚
6. KSSI (1,550 watts) China Lake, CA 1,180 miles
7. KYUN (5.2 kW) Twin Falls, ID 901 miles
8. K271CW (250 watts) Yankton, SD 133 miles
9. KQRA (4.9 kW) Brookline, MO 330 miles

The Pat Benatar song might still be from WQLF with the distorted music just after that being from K271CT.

[WHJ]

With an unused coax to a tower, I thought that I might add a side mounted folded dipole pair for broadcast FM reception. I wanted to try using it along with one of my two different FM Yagi's to my RSPduo tuner for diversity reception and nulling locals for DX reception on the same frequency. While that combination might work when there is an opening, using one Yagi headed towards the local and the other towards the DX is the better combination for weak signal reception. Comparatively, the omni-directional folded dipoles add too much noise and other interference.

The folded dipoles provided an interesting reference antenna to compare reception of the wandering frequency KGCO (Crete, NE) that has been transmitting on 108.0 MHz for several months. The reception comparison is shown below:



KGCO transmits 100 watts to a 52' high antenna 24 miles away from me. KJTM operates on 107.9 running 100 watts to a 92' high antenna 21 miles away from me. Mostly due to its higher transmit antenna, KJTM is 6 dB stronger than KGCO when beaming that way. KGCO can't be received while using the folded dipoles and the other weak signals have more interference. The 7 PM KGCO ID is also attached.
KGCO 20240904.mp3
They still haven't figured out how to program the correct time zone.