What kind of equipment do you need to do this?

[Guzzy]

Will any old UK TV work, or are you limited to what you can receive?

Maybe someone can do a rundown of what equipment will receive what TV signals?

[troutboy]

Good question Guzz, i myself have often thought of recieving DX TV, but haven't known what i would need. Seems an interesting part of the hobby. I'd appreciate any info,

Cheers

[kc]

The answer to this depends on what you want to receive. Any TV can receive DX if the conditions are right, even that one in the corner of the room.
I often use to tune around during periods of good propagation & use to get stations from all over the UK, even with my antenna pointing at the local TX.
But with a rotatable antenna things obviously improve, especially if that antenna has a good gain & height.
But given that analogue TV is not far from being switched off in the UK, things will probably change.

[Panteneman]

Indeed.

Our chum Mr KC is indeed quite right.

Here are my personal findings:

(1) Get hold of a TV that covers VHF as well as UHF (most commonly, "Band 1" VHF - this is usually found on pocket TV's and those cube ones used for linking camcorders up). There are other bands used worthy of note too. But, Band 1 can have the most spectacular DX lifts.

(2) Also, the same TV will likely be multistandard (Pal/Secam/NTSC) and deal with the different variants as explained here: http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/WorldTV/
Consult your TV's manual to find out what it can and can't recieve, for example, PAL has different Vision / Sound carrier spacings. Which will mean that you may be able to recieve a picture, but with no sound.

We used a hybrid valve/transistor (solid state) TV called a Kortin, which was of 1970's design and had a band 1 VHF tuner alongside the normal UHF tuner. This TV was also colour. And, we used a Plustron TV/Tape Recorder/Radio combo that had a small wee black and white CRT tube. That also acheived excellent results.

The downside with the modern TV is "blank signal muting", which gives the TV a blue screen and no sound. Which could make weak signal detection problematic. Try and get one of the old school TV's (problematic as many have probably been disposed and could be difficult to repair because of discontinued spares).

(3) Build an appropriate antenna (which will be a log periodic beam) from dipoles cut to the correct resonant frequency and the correct sized boom. Me and my Dad made up a 3 element beam for VHF Band 1 in this case. Or, perhaps scour the 'net and buy an appropriate antenna.

VHF is often used abroad combined with UHF, as VHF has a greater range which will mean less transmitters and repeaters will need to be used because of their large landmass. Which is why the UK is on UHF.

Also, broadly speaking, TV DX shares the same propagation charateristics as 6m/2m/70cm/23cm Ham bands (sporadic E, tropspheric ducting, meteor scatter etc).

FM DX:
This is even simpler, as all you need is just your normal FM radio tuner and the right conditions. Better results are obtained with something that can accept an outside antenna connection, and a suitable FM radio beam and rotator. A Hi-Fi seperates radio tuner is ideal.

This summer, even a friends car stereo revealed an FM station from Portugal on 88.1 that even showed up with RDS data!

DX I have recieved:
SVT 1 & 2 (Sweden), Dutch TV, French TV, Russian (came up with "Bepmr" news bulletin - spelt in cryllic script), and TVE from the Navercerrada transmitter (from what I can remember, I was a kid back then).

The reception of TVE on Band 1 was the most spectacular. It was recieved in full colour for most of the afternoon and evening and was relatively consistent. We even watched their version of The Price Is Right, that was offering a brand new Nissan Bluebird GSX as a prize!! This was sometime in the late 1980s, during a turbulent summer storm and thunder

For more details, check this wee link out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_DX