After 45+ years I have received DX reports on AM, FM and TV (“For AM DXers, the Romance Lives On,”).
We recently received one for our DTV station from a viewer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan some 370 miles north of our stick. They even sent a picture of the perfect DTV pix.
I recall Popular Electronics issuing SWL call signs when I was a kid. At age 5, I was building diode, razor blade, crystal radios, and by age 9, small tube receivers for everything from LW to aircraft band/2 meters, from articles in PE, Electronics Illustrated, et al.
A 1 tube (triple triode) aircraft receiver never worked right, but a super regen got the aircraft landing in Chicago fine.
I mounted a monster Kay-Townes VHF yagi on the roof of the house and logged FM and TV signals in the ‘60s on a Scott FM tuner and Motorola 7-inch and other ancient TV sets. An eight-foot UHF parabolic on the roof with a transistorized preamp was the height of joy and Channel 50 Detroit was as reliable as local Chicago stations.
I still have pics of TV from North Carolina, D.C., New York City and western Canada including British Columbia and Alberta, even Alaska.
Back then we could also get stations above 69 such as the Indiana mobile airborne educational TV, CITY TV in Toronto, and lots that are no longer on the air — Marion, Ind., Muskegon, Mich., Fond du Lac, Wis., Sandusky, Ohio, WXLT 60 Aurora, Ill., and so on.
St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, Cincinnati, Green Bay, Milwaukee, Madison, Indianapolis, Peoria, Quad Cities stations were receivable nearly every evening.
The pièce de résistance was when I was living in southern Indiana and WGBH Boston blasted away the local (21 miles) Terra Haute Channel 2 for seven weeks, day and night.
The most fun was Global TV from Windsor (Sarnia?), watching SCTV and the “Glow Ball News,” CKLW(TV) Channel 9 etc.
I have yet to find a better FM DX radio than my Marantz Model 20. With this tuner, stations in Ft. Wayne, Ind., and Grand Rapids, Mich., are “locals” to me.
Henry Ruhwiedel
WYIN(TV), WLPR(FM), AA9XW
Chicago
