 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||
|
|
 Previous: Broadband over Power Line video available |  Next: W1AW Field Day Message to be Transmitted on Both US Coasts |
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
June 18, 2004
'Tis the season for VHF and UHF band openings, so this week, we visit a Web site dedicated to the TV and FM broadcast band DXing.
Let me count the wires. There is coax connecting the antenna to the amplifier and coax connecting the amplifier to the radio. There is a cable connecting the amplifier to dc power, a cable connecting the radio to dc power and a cable connecting the GPS to dc power. There is a cable connecting the GPS to the radio, and finally, there is a cable connecting the microphone to the radio. Unrelated to Amateur Radio, there also is a cable that connects the iPod to a cassette adapter that allows me to play the iPod through the land barge's stereo system.
All these wires are hanging around the area of the dashboard just over the transmission hump. When the "Pie Doggies" travel with me, add two dogs and two leashes to the mix and things can get real messy!
For $30, I bought a transmitter for the iPod that allows me to play the iPod through the FM receiver in the land barge. The transmitter plugs into the top of the unit and draws power from the iPod's battery, so there are no wires to power the transmitter. This setup eliminates the wire between the iPod and the cassette adapter. Without going into details, trust me when I say that that wire was the most troublesome of all the wires in land barge. It was even more troublesome than the coax on the floor in the rear passenger area that tangled up an in-law one cold night last winter.
To use the iPod transmitter, you find an unused channel in the FM broadcast band, set the transmitter to that channel, and voila, you are broadcasting your music collection on the air. (I wouldn't actually call it "broadcasting" because the transmitter's range is about 10 feet.)
Living on the highest ridge in the county and smack dab in the middle of the New York-Boston metroplex, finding an unused channel on the FM band is not easy. I actually could not find a clear channel. The few unused channels all had splatter from the used adjacent channels, so I compromised and found one that did not have much splatter, programmed it into the transmitter, and everything was copacetic as I commuted to and fro listening to my favorite tunes.
Last Friday morning as I started up the land barge to go to the salt mine, I turned on the radio and there was a strong signal parked on the "clear" channel I had selected for my iPod transmitter. A station out of Providence, which is normally inaudible at my home, was coming in like gangbusters.
It is June and the VHF bands were doing what they often do on June mornings. The FM band was wide open due to enhanced propagation conditions (tropo). I tuned the whole band and every channel was occupied by a strong signal. Until I drove to a lower altitude, the iPod transmitter was not strong enough to capture the Providence station and even then, there was intermittent interference.
When I returned home from work, I was determined to find a clearer channel. The band conditions were back to normal and I was more deliberate comparing the splatter on the unused channels. I was sure I found the clearest channel, reprogrammed the iPod transmitter, and everything was fine until this morning, when I found another strong station broadcasting on my new clear channel!
I guess I will have to find other means of entertainment on those days when the FM band is open. How about FM broadcast band DXing?
 Mike's TV and FM DX Page is a personal labor of love. |
Mike's TV and FM DX Page is the "labor of love" of Mike Bugaj, who publishes VHF-UHF Digest, the monthly magazine of the Worldwide TV-FM DX Association. (We featured the Association's Web site here back in August 2001.)
Being a personal Web site, Mike's site is a little more personal than the Association's site and is a lot of fun to explore. On the really personal side, you can look at maps that illustrate Mike's DX catches during E skip and tropo propagation conditions and on the less personal side, you can read Mike's articles about how to get started and what equipment to use for TV and FM DXing.
You can listen to an amazing assortment of Realaudio sound clips of DX stations received by Mike during aurora, tropo, E skip, and F2 skip conditions. And if you want more, check out Mike's Mailroom for a long list of links pertinent to TV and FM DXing.
By the way, enhanced propagation conditions on the broadcast bands may indicate that there are enhanced conditions of the ham bands in the world above 50 MHz. Before cable, I caught some nice E skip conditions on 2 meters after I saw the E skip rolling through the TV broadcast bands.
Until next week, keep on surfin'
Editor's note:
Cable and the dish killed TV DXing, yet WA1LOU still cannot find anything to
watch. To discuss TV and FM DXing and other important stuff with Stan, send him
e-mail at wa1lou@arrl.net.
| Previous: Broadband over Power Line video available | Next: W1AW Field Day Message to be Transmitted on Both US Coasts |
