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Richard Clark · April 15th 08, 05:39 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.antenna

On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:26:09 -0700, wrote:

One example that I personally observed (quite literally) was watching
TV programining out of Edmonton and Calgary Canada while I was living
in Colorado Springs, Colorado. There were times I could watch an
entire movie before the duct faded away.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Yup, ducting, meteor scatter etc can all provide extended VHF range.
I've only done about 250 miles on 2 meters, though on 6 meters my
farthest contact was about 3000 miles...........did as straight a line
as I could on MS Streets & Trips to 'calculate' that so there may well
be some error.

That was pretty good range for a video signal to carry, Richard; was
that on an older tv that actually allowed you to [fine] tune?

Yes, it was. And I was very much younger (a reverse convergence in
this somewhere). This was in the mid-1960s, summer time, antenna
pointed generally north, low band TV. The view north was a clear shot
to the horizon at a high point of roughly 6400 feet (average terrain
at least 6000 feet).

I also worked in a TV shop at the time (summers and weekends) and had
experience with 100s of "tuners" for TV. Some were works of art, some
trash, and few really helped because Colorado Springs was not a
metropolitan area and far from Denver. We did have one advantage
however. The local TV transmitters were atop Cheyenne Mountain. That
had about a 1 mile height advantage over the average terrain to the
east. It was also ground Zero for probably a good percentage of the
Soviet nuclear arsenal. I lived, perhaps, two miles from the front
doors (direct hit-proof blast doors, those) of NORAD.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC