# Is TV DXing now a thing of the past?



## samhevener

Now that all the high power stations have gone digital, is TV DXing history? I remember DXing and catching something like 28 states or so, as far as 1700+ miles away. The picture and sound quality of most of the DX stations was bad, really bad. A normal person would say there is no signal there. We DXers would do the impossible. Now with all digital, the TV set will only lock on the picture if the signal level is strong. Maybe I'm missing something that can be done to allow a TV to lock on a weak picture, I don't know.


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## n3ntj

TV DX-ing will be a bit different now. I've received stations from Denver, Minneapolis, Miami, Houston, etc. here from PA in the glory days of analog TV DX-ing.

To do so now, I guess we'll have to rescan often and have a strong signal to maintain the scan and viewable afterwards to watch it. I guess the PSIP info will help us though.


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## SayWhat?

> Maybe I'm missing something that can be done to allow a TV to lock on a weak picture, I don't know.


Dunno either. Seems like you'd have to alter the low threshold for a signal lock inside the tuner somehow, but I don't know if that would be hardware or software, or just completely impossible.


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## Upstream

n3ntj said:


> TV DX-ing will be a bit different now.


Right. Now if you want to watch a distant channel, you turn on your laptop, enter the web address of the distant channel into your internet browser, and click the "watch live" button.


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## ChrisPC

samhevener said:


> Now that all the high power stations have gone digital, is TV DXing history? I remember DXing and catching something like 28 states or so, as far as 1700+ miles away. The picture and sound quality of most of the DX stations was bad, really bad. A normal person would say there is no signal there. We DXers would do the impossible. Now with all digital, the TV set will only lock on the picture if the signal level is strong. Maybe I'm missing something that can be done to allow a TV to lock on a weak picture, I don't know.


The best thing to do is get a really sensitive tuner, like the Zenith converter box, and get a good antenna. DXers have already been DXing DTV for years now. Tropo works well, and E-skip works sometimes. Usually, you only get PSIP data with E-skip.

A lot of people are reporting DTV DX, now that they're rescanning. A lot of channels are open now that weren't before. Not to mention Canada, Mexico, Cuba, etc., are still on low-band analog. Those will be much easier to get now.

I saw one thread where the poster's local low-band analogs went off, and then he saw low-band analogs from 1000+ miles away via E-skip! One of those signed off, and he got another city!


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## T_N_T

TV dxing is not done, but it won't be near as easy to recieve a station say from 1000+ miles away as it was in the days of analog, that is because of how digital works(its like a data stream) so either you have the signal or you don't and when you don't have it real good you will get pixelation/audio dropouts. Its just more of a challenge now to DX, thats all.

Check out this website if you want to know about radio/tv dxing(analog and digital), this is not my site just trying to show you something.

http://www.dxfm.com


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## jpeckinp

There were a few doing pretty good with DX here in Chicago last night. People were getting stations from Florida, Colorado, Montana and Michigan.


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## Jon Ellis

I was getting some great e-skip from Quebec this evening on channel 2 in Webster, WI. TV DX from Canada and Mexico lives!


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## Raymie

Somebody reported getting WBTV-DT Charlotte in KC...but WBTV-DT is UHF 23.


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