Deutschlandfunk Aurich. Here's what it was like here after midnight local (2316 UTC 18.7.16):

https://app.box.com/s/qwoc54ybt1m251mj3ovyz0jcqgpxz9th

Thanks Nick! Good question. Not really one of my priorities at the moment, lol. Although I was wondering are loft aerials any good? I've got the top floor!

There has been a lift on here (east coast of Lincs) towards Holland most of today. This extends to pulling in a rare TV Mux, which hasn't visited for a while. However one of my "local" Dutch Muxs (Fryslan) isn't showing a peep this evening, which suggests that the lift is much further south over Holland (towards Belgium).

Happy DX

Jon

As well as the main roof mounted 5 element, I use a loft mounted folded dipole for the v-polarised stuff- I think it'd be worth a go.

Thanks. I was also wondering if a TV aerial helps with FM signals compared to just a wire? I've got 2 spare aerial sockets!

Thanks for that, very helpful.

The only loft aerial I've tried was the loft TV aerial at my old house and it was enough to rely on for DXing, I got Pontop Pike nationals and Viking FM from Hull daily on scatter. It was nearly as good as the rooftop TV aerial at my current house

Thanks, it sounds like I might get decent results if I plug my TV aerial into my hi-fi once I've moved in properly.

P.S. Belgium and the Netherlands are appearing again now.

Good idea Catherine. Re Belgium and the Netherlands, I had Qmusic IJsselstein 100.7 quite clear on my Grundig G5 portable and I could even hear Egem 98.6/102.1 with the telescopic antenna fully closed!!!

Now getting Qmusic 100.4 and sky 101.0 from Smilde better than 100.7/101.2. Also weak DLF Aurich 101.8

Obviously everything is wrong about the TV aerial but some metal on the roof will almost certainly be better than the usual bit of wire pinned on the wall!

Just heard 95.8 NDR 1, 98.1 NDR 2, 101.8 DLF, 103.1 FFN and 104.9 Antenne from Aurich on both the Grundig G5 and my Sony XDR-S10HDiP with a ribbon wire antenna. 101.8 peaked at 2 bars.

I don't have much opportunity for DX-FM because most channels are occupied by London / suburban stations or pirates, but the Grundig G5 has been getting France Inter 103.7 and France Culture 98.0 from near Lille.

Catherine, you may even find that you get something from the downlead alone if it's of the usual poor quality stuff in most houses. I have found that the response from a TV aerial for FM is about the same as one of those halo things Argos insist on stocking- make of that what you will....

Thanks again for the replies. You mentioned a folded dipole - this could be a good idea as it looks like it would be easy to change the polarisation and direction if you have it indoors?

Yeah folded dipoles are really good my ribbon wire antenna is a sort of folded dipole and it's really good for tropo especially Belgium and Holland it's very cheap and can be found in Maplin but it does pick up some electrical interference when our TV is on but bet any folded dipole indoors would be the same

Of course the antenna does help but so does a good receiver I would recommend the Sony XDR-S10HDiP it's really good and I've heard tropo signals next to Stoke Holy X freqs often like 102.5 538 Tjerkgaast and 95.2 BBC Oxford/ Slam from Alphen aan den Rijn it's really sensitive too and would beat any hifi but you do need a US/UK voltage converter because it's American

The dipole I've got looks a bit like this:


https://www.google.co.uk/search?doci...dpCroQwg4IIigA


It stays in the verical position, hence is omnidirectional, but could quite easily be turned horizontal. I've found I need a vertical antenna for any chance of pulling in community stations etc- even my local one doesn't stand a chance on the outdoor horizontal.

Anyone want a Sony ST-SE520 tuner?

Hi Catherine

Congratulations on your new place.

I haven't totally read this thread, but if the TV aerial is an older one it will probably pick up radio better than a newer one because it won't have a `balun' in it. In my experience most newer TV aerials really don't do much for radio reception, whereas I remember years ago I could even DX Netherlands and France from an old group B X beam (though admittedly it was very very high up)

When you say `spare aerial sockets', so you mean a wall plate with more than one outlet? If that outlet is a FM / TV diplexer then yes, you will get some radio signal from it. If it's not a diplexer, you could replace the existing wall socket with one?

As for the aerial in the loft or outside, I've made an interesting (possibly to me only!) discovery lately. Antiference FM aerials don't have a folded dipole (which would be full wave for FM and quadruple wave for DAB) but they have two single dipoles spaced apart with plastic lugs. They call it the `trumatch' series. This means that the active part of the aerial (the dipole you make the connection to) is a half wave for FM, but also apx a full wave for DAB.

So an Antiference FM aerial (the 3 or 5 ele) works really well for both. Even on the horizontal plane it will pick it good DAB, but even better if vertically polarised if you don't need quite so much directivity.

I've currently got one of these up on the chimney vertically doing a grand job of FM and DAB. They're quite big but if you have a good open loft space it could be a possibility for you - then if you fancy a tinker for some DXing, you have some directivity too? Once you've moved in you might be able to figure some way of combining your loft radio signal with the TV one; you just need to work out where the distribution boards are (assuming you're moving to some sort of `block' of flats).

Of course reception conditions and requirements and different from one situation to another and you have to find the one which works for you. I think I've had just about every type of aerial on the roof before settling on this one, until I have my next mad professor idea......but seriously I think I'm done now as I'm happy with the result.

Once again hope you are happy in your new place.

Nick

Thanks for the info Nick. There are 3 TV aerial sockets in 3 different rooms, but I only have one TV so I thought I might as well make use of one of the others, lol.

Anyone want a Sony ST-SE520 tuner?

what sounds like Arabic folk music on 87.9 on barefoot Tecsun PL-390 is this double hop Es I read posts on the skywaves dx forum and people on there said they were getting Jordanian tv on channel E3 and israel on fm 91.8

I think I got radio masr from minya egypt checked the live stream and its playing similar music too what i heard now im just getting a weak omroep zeeland via scatter from netherlands

I imagine people stand the best chance with a TV aerial if they live in an apartment block as the aerial would be a good bit higher than in a house.

Apparently yesterday's opening was huge and went on for several hours with double-hop from Israel, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon logged on FM.

Guess what? I missed all of it because I was at work! Grrrr....