Long Range Tests

Description:

Long distance stations are picked up from San Diego, about 130 miles away. There are no significant mountain peaks in my line of sight. Due to the distance, the line of sight is actually being blocked by the curvature of the earth. San Diego is a coastal town, most of the path the signal travels is along the coastline. Because of this, weather becomes a critical factor in signal reception. In favorable weather conditions, signal levels can be very high with the help of tropospheric ducting. In bad weather conditions, the moisture and fog in the air can create a "wall of water". The lack of the "ducting" can cause the signal to completely disappear. A high gain directional antenna is required to pick up these distant stations, but you will still need good weather conditions for reliable reception.

Results Definition:

XX-XX = Measured signal strength level
0-XX-XX = Signal locks on briefly but keeps dropping out
0-50 = Signal was detected but not able to lock
0 = No signal detected

Note: Signal level refers to the Dish 6000 indicator which measures the signal quality based on percentage of errors. As long as the indicator stays above 48-50%, the signal will lock. I assume that if you have over 50% errors, the Dish 6000 does not have enough good signal to decode properly. A reading of 100% would indicate no errors in signal. I have found that at 47% I will see pixelation in the picture and below 46% the picture will drop out completely.

**For easier printing, click on image to bring up a separate page containing just results.

Date: 1/19/02

Conclusion:

Televes Pro-Range 1046 (Dat75)

Good performance on the easier to get channels, but only a slight indication of a signal on ch30 and no signal detected on ch39

DY28A

Best performing antenna for the lower frequency channels 19, 23, 25, 30
Although this is a group "A" antenna (ch14-35), channel 55 was coming in strong enough today for this antenna to pick it up
Signal strength levels always seem to fluctuate more than with the other antennas

JBX21WB

This antenna was tested using two different sized reflectors. Both reflectors had similar results for long distance reception. For short distance reception with multipath, the larger reflector is better
The PCB balun was replaced with the 6.5 coax balun in the second test. My experience with coax baluns is that it widens the channel range of the antenna, since the WB is already tuned for a wide range, there was not much difference in the results. The WB has a longer trace on the PCB than the C/D

JBX21C/D

This antenna ships with a PCB balun that is tuned for the upper channel range. The only channel that I could get from San Diego with the PCB balun is ch55
With the coax balun, this antenna becomes a very good wide range solution for me. It is the best antenna for picking up my local channels 59, 65, 66 (see this test). And with the coax balun installed, it is also capable of getting all the San Diego channels

ATF-X200

This is my custom built antenna in a new configuration. It performs well for all San Diego channels, but I cannot get the local ch59, 65, 66 with it yet