Old DXTV!

[Focus Diode]

Following on from Trevor's excellent thread on current DXTV here's one on older reception which survives on tape or photo. It's hoped others will upload their own.

I've now played through some surviving VHS recordings of DXTV. To start with here's my earliest recordings when in Torquay, Devon in 1983.

For the Sporadic E catch I used an up-converter connected to a DER 8940 VCR. The UHF was recorded directly onto VHS tape.

The last two shots were received on chE3 in 1991. I used a Telefunken VR520 VCR which is similar to a Ferguson 3V29 with a VHF/UHF tuner.

I'll upload more in due course.

Brian R

[Focus Diode]

More from 1991, recorded on the Telefunken VR520 VCR in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

Due to restrictions I could only mount the trusty Fuba XC343 permanantly fixed for Bilsdale. A VHF aerial survived in the roof space.

Brian

[radioredcat]

I transfered all my DX tapes to PC and have uploaded a lot of them and the response was amazing, as a lot of people from the poorer countries just went crazy because they did not have VCRs and some did not TVs, especiallythose from Poland/East Germany/former Yugoslavia.

Very nice pics there i have many of them myself.

Andy

[Tazman1966]

Great stuff Brian

[Focus Diode]

Here's more as received in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne using a fixed Fuba XC343 aerial directed for Bilsdale (first class noise free pictures under all conditions from that transmitter).

1). GRAMPIAN TV- Durris. A frequent visitor with much ghosting being from the opposite direction! Still with in vision announcers. 1991

2). ANGLIA TV- Talconeston. Another regular via trops often giving good pictures like here. I was even able to record an interesting regional doccumentary on pirate radio history. Happy days of regional ITV. 1992

3). CENTRAL- Sutton Coldfield. This would often "share" with BRT Belgium, sometimes they would be BRT pictures with Central sound on a System I set. Indeed in this picture there's co-channel from BRT. 1992

4). NEDERLAND 2 opening caption, 1991.

5). NEDERLAND 3 clock caption (it's overexposed on the original recording). At that time Nederland 2 used an identical styled clock.

Cheers,
Brian

[arjoll]

Interesting stuff - although I'm not really sure on the distances/directions involved

Apparently Taniamaree's dad used to get some Australian TV when they lived at Monowai (in the middle of nowhere). The closest I've had here - other than the regular co-channel interference on TV One channel 1 Hedgehope from TV One channel 1 Kaukau (Wellington) - was when TV2 channel 3 Hedgehope went off-air during a film, so I tuned in to TV2 from Obelisk, Central Otago (I think it was channel 4 or 5). Must have been around 1996, before Mercury (now Cue) started up on channel 5 Forest Hill.

Talking about the interference on channel 1, apparently in the first half of the 1980's TV One did a series of Marx Bros movies, which dad was really keen on, on a Sunday morning. One Sunday the picture was horrible, almost unwatchable, until about halfway through Duck Soup. Turns out Hedgehope hadn't started up properly (they were still closing down back then) and he was watching it direct from Kaukau! I know he had a VHS recording of it, but that is probably long gone now.

There's quite a bit of NZ DX on Youtube (search on NZ TV DX).

[radioredcat]

Nice photos brian i've not received anything from scotland due to all the hills in the way.

Regarding sutton coldfield i remember BRT interfering with it and also the wrekin used to receive off air transmissions from sutton and also BRT during tropo.

Talconeston is another transmitter i never received because it used the same channels as winter hill then when winter hill dso'd i received for the first time last year.

I'll dig some photos out when i get chance.

Andy

[Focus Diode]

Looking forward to seeing the photos Andy. Hills certainly do get in the way as they did when living in Chippenham, as discussed in Trevor's thread.

Certainly in NE England even Border TV let alone Granada is impossible at this end due to the Pennines. I did once receive HTV Cymru/Wales in North Shields when staying there temporarilly in mid 1982.

Cheers,
Brian

[radioredcat]

Here are photo's of Nederland 1 received on uhf ch 29 form lopik co-channeling with CH4 from The Wrekin in sept 1982,The mother of all openings as daytime temps were in the 80's with a high pressure over here and the continent and dx was present constantly over about five days.



More to come.

Andy

[Valvepower]

Hi,

I’ve recently seen a couple of articles about TV DX’ng in The Radio Constructor Magazine dating back to 1960 and 1970. If anyone’s interested next time I have the scanner out in the next week or so I could scan them and post them on the group? I’ll also have to find the magazines again!

Regards
Terry.

[radioredcat]

I uploaded 5 photo's and and the attachment button has stopped working,I have realized that one photo has to many pixels so i don't know if that has anything to do with it.

Apologies if iv'e caused any inconvenience.

Andy

[radioredcat]

Here are some more photos the first 3 are from the sept 1982 opening the last 2 are via SPE received on CH E4.



Pic 1 is a vlc snap off the recording i have of the DDR 2 received on uhf ch 34 from brocken east germany and pic 2 was taken when i did not have a secam decoder back in the 80's.
Today's tv's are no problem in displaying secam but when i put the recording up on you tube it was there for about 6 months before i was told to take it off by Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv.

It was up long enough for my german friends to download it.

The upload problem i had yesterday has gone.

Andy

[Focus Diode]

Great pics Andy. I never managed to receive DFF via trops myself.

I was surprised to see NOS 1 operating at UHF as I always thought Lopik was on chE4 BI VHF. I received this during the fantastic 1995 opening. Of course ch29 would've been impossible in the NE due to Bilsdale TTT.

From what I recall the id "PTT-NED 1" etc would change to "NEDERLAND 1" etc shortly prior to programme commencement.

Cheers,
Brian

[radioredcat]

Indeed you are right about lopik it was (GOES) which used uhf ch 29.

You are also correct about "PTT-NED 1" it did change to nederland 1 prior to programs.

I always had a tuner for the video fitted with g8 selectivity filters and a seperate tuner for the audio which just had a multiband tuner connected to a radio which had 30-50mhz band and then these were fed into a vcr thats how i got round the sound spacing problem.

Later when i bought the reddifusion translators i still used the sound system described ealier.



Hmm an untidy git then but i was young free and single that would be 1982 after that photo i acquired another thorn 1400 happy days.

Andy

[radioredcat]

In addition to tv-dx I had a lot of amateur tv as well the longest distance is france F1EDM AND F3YX.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9SJ4dM4VVM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQZDXVk8L94

F1EDM was received here many times and he commented on the video.

Other TV hams are G8VHF/G1DDA/G6XUM/G3UMF/GATMT/G6CKN/GW3MUO/G4GFD/G3RLA/GW8XLL.

Andy

[German Dalek]

Hi Radioredcat!
What the hell is going on there?
Tell us please for what the reason the German Rundfunkarchiv didn`t allow
You to show Your private non comercial, non political, non violence videos

Best regards,

The German Dalek

[Andy Doz]

How did he fit Chroma into the 70cm bandwidth?

[Focus Diode]

That's a great looking system Andy. I ran a couple of Thorn 1400s myself well into the '90s.

I purchased an Amstrad tuner unit, going cheap from Greenwelds in Southampton (are they still around?), designed to convert PC monitors to TV sets. This covered VHF and UHF to the system B/G standard. I plugged it into a VCR with excellent results. Sadly I don't have it now.

Another good feature was if the connections were reversed it would bring up French System L signals on a standard negative modulation set!

Cheers,
Brian

[radioredcat]

Originally Posted by German Dalek

What the hell is going on there?

Hi German Dalek apparently Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv don't allow video's of East German TV before 1989 due to copyright.

I was told by a good German friend (originally form DDR) that I was not the first and I certainly wasn't the last.
What they did was put up the vids then send emails alerting us so we could download them before they were taken down.

I did send some DVD's out privately to friends as it's not my fault their signals past my way.

Andy

[radioredcat]

Originally Posted by Focus Diode

I purchased an Amstrad tuner unit, going cheap from Greenwelds in Southampton (are they still around?), designed to convert PC monitors to TV sets. This covered VHF and UHF to the system B/G standard. I plugged it into a VCR with excellent results. Sadly I don't have it now.

I have heard anything of greenweld until i just googled it and yes it's still going just not we new it.

Ah yes french tv as i was constantly bombarded with it when there was a lift so of course the 1400's were fitted with a polarity switch.
Then bought a little if board with pos and neg outputs later i just made a simple inverter as you can see in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGUeDql2KA0

I have not to date been bombarded French digital.


Andy