Doug McDonald wrote:

Drewdawg wrote:


Any ATSC receiver can pick up DX. All you need sometimes is a set of rabbit
ears to pick up DTV stations up to 100 miles away. At least that's what
some guy in New York City got when he received a Philadelphia station.

Yep, very true indeed. Last summer I ROUTINELY watched
WRTV (Ch 25) in Indy from 108 miles away. But ... it's a maximized
power station on a tall tower, and there is the very wide
Wabash valley right where the earth's crest is.

The other Indy stations are much more rarely visible,
and, surprise surprise, I've never seen the one I really
want, Channel 9 (CBS).

One item of note: I live on the east side of Indy, significantly
farther than 10miles from the antenna farm. Channel 9 is BY FAR
the easiest of the 5-6 (or more) DTV channels for me to receive.

The simple indoor rabbit ears for myi Hi-VHF reception seem to require
no augmentation for optimum performance (while the reception of the
UHF stations is either slightly or significantly more problematical.)
Luckily, Ch9 isn't being starved by using a 2kW or other nonsensical
power level. Frankly, if the transmitter was 100kW or somesuch, it
would be incredibly fantastically easy to receive :-).

Note: my current set-up does indeed use a preamp on the dipole,
but because of the diplexer that I use to combine with the UHF
reception, and I only use a 13dB gain (good quality) preamp to
mitigate the subsequent losses.

Ch9 was the first signal that I received with my DTC100 survey receiver,
and it was almost impossible to fail to receive.

It is amazing for a 19kW transmitter, that the signal is easy to
receive. However, the relatively lower frequency and high true
gain of simple dipoles at the Ch9 frequency seems to help. (I
know that you know this, but others might not realize: It
is easy to be seduced by the 'high gain' of UHF antenna designs,
but non-RF types need to understand that the gain is specified
relative to an isotopic or dipole -- and at high frequencies, the
gathering capability of such antennas is significantly reduced,
because of the smaller area.)

Ch8/Ch9 is (by far) the best source for HDTV in Indy, but the
other stations are getting better.

John