Bob Cooper:

WOW!!!
Great stuff. Congratulations on being first to do it. Now we need a "DTV"
record box for DTV transmissions.
What are the distances to each of the three you sent me photos for - and -
was the "lift" (tropo) up some, alot or what? Yes, there will be an entirely
new set of practices to learn and you can pave the way for the rest.
Bob
_______________________________________________________________

Ken Aupperle, Hauppauge

Nice stuff - I had no idea it would work at those distances !

So - which do you like better, the analog or digital :-)

On the other hand, the digital signal probably takes some of the challenge
element out of the DX'ing, or does it?

Keep up the good work - maybe you could add some technical info to the web
site - like what type and size antenna you used, the weather conditions,
whether or not the broadcaster was multicasting more than one program on the
digital stream, the original source resolution, the ATSC format that the
broadcaster used, the fact that it's our card and what model, etc.

_____________________________________________________________
 

Chip Kelley (USA Online)

Thanks for the neat photos.

Chip

_____________________________________________________________

a perplexed person:

I looked at the site and the pictures are quite impressive.  I am a bit
confused though as to how you're receiving the signal.  Is it from a
satellite?  What is the significance of the "(xxx mi)" (presumable miles?)
indicator?

I'm quite interested in what you're doing here.

Mike.
_____________________________________________________________

another perplexed person:

What does it mean?  Can you explain more?  You are finding digital video
signals bounced off of the troposphere?  How did you do it?

____________________________________________________________

from KHQA-7:

Jeff,     First of all thanks for posting the pix. Incredible to say the least. I was curious if
you would allow KHQA to perhaps interview you for an upcoming news story. I had no idea a
Television DX group existed. Before I came to Quincy, I lived in Edina, MO and had a 90' Rohn 25
with a low UHF array with preamp and enjoyed finding video from Madison,WI to Tulsa,OK on my setup.
The VHF stations pretty much wiped each other out, unless I could find Stations with a good front
to back ratio.  Thanks, Chris.
____________________________________________________________
 

from WBTV-DT:

Hey Jeff,
    Interesting pictures. If you are ever swinging your antenna towards
the southeast take a look on ch 23 for WBTV-DT.  We are quite a distance
from you so I'm not sure of the tropo ducting conditions but if you
happen to see us let me know.

Joe Carey
Transmitter Supervisor
WBTV, WBTV-DT
Charlotte, NC
___________________________________________________________

Aaron Barnhart (national syndicated TV Columnist):

Look good but ... help me.  I guess I don't know what DX is or really,
what's going on here.

Aaron's reply after my reply:

Wow!

I had no idea.  Is this how the CATV system in my hometown of Billings,
Mont., was able to bring in the signals of stations in Salt Lake City,
Denver and Lethbridge?

___________________________________________________________

A TV Guide Collector:

Wow!  Digital TV looks pretty good.  If you can get Chicago, Detroit and Madison from your location
so clearly, you'll have to subscribe to more editions of TV Guide to find out what's on.  Wonder if
TVG will take into consideration the new signals
___________________________________________________________

A Fox Engineer:

Dear Jeff,

I really enjoyed looking at your tropo photos, especially of WFLD-DT since I
had a hand in getting Chicago's only DTV station on the air from Sears Tower.

I wonder if you have had any luck receiving WJBK-DT (58), our station in
Detroit?  Very soon now you can start looking for KTVI-DT (43) in St. Louis.
Of course, we have about a dozen stations on nationwide, but those would be
the closest.

Please let me know if you are able to see any of them.  Thanks and 73,

Earl Arbuckle K6EFA
VP of Engineering
Fox Television Stations, Inc.
__________________________________________________________
 

A Ham:

Jeff,

     FANTASTIC photographs that you took,  posted to the Net.

     DTV expert Mark Schobeing posted address of your pictures on the
net and
I've got to tell you,  they BLEW MY MIND!

     I printed the Digital DX pix and a page of your UHF DX pix and plan
to display
them at my 'flea market' space this weekend at the Peoria
Hamfest.....Should create
some interesting comments.   Hope you dont mind.

     I was also intrigued by your equipment.   Ham radio operators like
that stuff and
I'm on the verge of getting on Amateur Television.   Just put the tower
up here at
Petersburg, Illinois.   I stopped at 65-feet.....still mulling over if I
should go another
10' with Rohn 25, guyed, in the woods,  but I'm at tree top level now.

     As a Ham,  I'll put up the beams atop the tower but your parabolic
(screened) dish
looks enticing.    Doubt I can handle the windload with this 'first'
tower attempt....but
the first antennas to go up were the UHF antennas.   I've been impressed
that Channel
12 near Champaign comes in so well,  without a VHF antenna!    30 in St.
Louis pops
in here a lot with nothing pointed in that direction, yet.

    Anyway,  GREAT DX'ing to you.  If you get over to the Peoria
Superfest,  please
say hello.    (They're at  w9uvi.org on the net).

    73,   Ben Kiningham,  K9IDQ
            (Bureau chief,  State Capitol,  Illinois Radio Network).
____________________________________________________________

Another Engineer:

Jeff:

        My I have your permission to post your URL on the PBS and B'cast
engineering "reflectors"?

        I've had questions from other PBS engineers on where or how did you
get the prototype card. They have been trying to no avail.

        I just received my Integera digital receiver back from the
manufacturer after having the terrestial tuner installed. The only DTV I can
get from Boston is the Ch. 7 DTV running full 1MW power. No hint of the 50
KW guys! I was using a 4 bay bow tie at 30 ft. but had a long coax on the
downlead. We are doing a remote this afternoon and will move the antenna and
use a shorter line after we catch our breath!

Bob, K1RWK

Bob Knott
WSBE-TV
50 Park Lane
Providence, R.I. 02907
____________________________________________________________

A ham with an appropriate call:

Great stuff! Picture #6 (WNDU-DT 42) is a great example
of the MPEG-2 decoder recovering after a slice start code.
I notice that the captures are 640 x 480. What was the original
resolution (progressive or interlaced) and how easy is it to
capture with the Hauppauge card?

Yes, I have to remember that not everyone is an MPEG propeller
head like me. As you've probably guessed, I work in the digital
television industry here at C-Cube, so it's real easy for me to
get carried away.

I quite enjoyed your web page and it was cool to actually see
the error performance on your DX reception. Basically, you had
three levels:

1) error-free
2) hairy-edge
3) toast

The hairy-edge stuff was what I was referring to in my original
post. The MPEG-2 video bitstream has a resynchronizing mechanism
within each picture which allows the decoder to recover from errors.
If the video bitstream gets too jumbled, the decoder will get
hopelessly lost due to the way the bits are coded. To avoid losing
a whole picture, the picture is divided up into chunks or "slices".
Typically, a slice is a 16 pixel row from left edge of image
to right edge of image. When the decoder gets lost, it starts
"looking" for the next slice start code (a special very easy
to find sequence of bits) and can resume decoding when it finds one.

Hope that makes some sense to you. BTW, some of your pictures
show bright green and pink blocks. These are "special" colors
in MPEG. Bright green is all zeroes and bright pink is all ones.

Anyways, have fun with DTV and if you have any technical questions,
feel free to e-mail me anytime

73,
Ron K6MPG
CM87wj
____________________________________________________________

Another ham:

Congratulations Jeff,

Is the NTSC-DTV card available to anyone and if so where?  ATV without
snow, what a concept!  Wonder how long it will be before some talented
ham homebrews a digital transmitter for ATV.

73,
John W8PAT
_____________________________________________________________
Another Engineer:

Very interesting stuff, Jeff.  Have you mailed these pix to the
engineers at these stations?  Craig Strom is the guy at WFLD and Marcus
Williams is at WDIV in Detroit.  I am sure that they would be
interested, if only for the propagation report.

What is the device you are using to demodulate the 8-VSB signal?  How
much does it cost?  Have you been able to demodulate any low band VHF
DTV stations?  If so, how do they fare in light of ignition noise/static
and co-channel interference?

Does the demod you are using support HD resolutions such as 720p and
1080i?

I remember someone, I think on the vhf reflector, moaning that DTV was
going to destroy TV DXing...looks like it will be alive and well...and
the perfect pictures, when the signal is above the digital "cliff", will
make station ID easy.

73,

Phil   KF9US
Dir of Engineering
WPWR, Chicago; KTVD, Denver

__________________________________________________________
 

Rick Proske, Harris Corp.

Jeff, Congratulations on your HD reception!

I work at Harris Broadcast in Quincy.  Born in Macomb.  I  have been doing HD demos and
experimental broadcasts in HD for about 3 years now.  I'm very interested in talking to you.

Please give me a call when you have a chance.
____________________________________________________________
 

 Mike Finley, Harris Field Service

Shared your site with my coworkers at Harris today, caused quite a stir.  Harris builds HDTV
transmitters in Quincy, IL south of you on the Mississippi River.  If you are visiting in Quincy
call me at Harris and I'll show you around.

____________________________________________________________
-End-