A Great Dxing Day!

Why do you doubt it somehow? His daughter's 23 same as my sister, they both go to (or at least went to) Leeds University.

Hi MikeG

I think James captured the pics using a TV card in his PC - neat.

The Hauppage WinTV series are worth thinking about - there are quite a few others too.

Some of us old tight-wads still take photos. of the TV screen (use a shutter speed of 1/15 sec or longer to avoid banding effects) but by the time the pics come back from Kodak the tropospheric lift has long gone away again!




(Edited by Roxof at 8:07 pm on Aug. 4, 2001)

How do you get TV thro your PC though?

Hi MikeG

The card is actually an on-board TV receiver (the aerial plugs into the back) which streams the picture to the video display (there's software to select the channel and so forth, and more software to 'capture' frames - or sequences - which you want to keep). So, for instance, you can have a live TV picture in the corner of your 'desk-top'. It does Teletext too. DVB-S and DVB-T cards are available too. Amazing stuff, really.

In fact, i want one! and i'm seriously thinking about getting one except my computer's so full of cards of various sorts that there don't seem to be any interrupts left

Thanx for replying! Now I know what a TV Card is!

Peace and Love,
Mike

(i don't know if this has been asked already, so excuse my idiocy, but...)

What's an Ariel? Is that a TV antenna to receive terrestrial TV signals?

Yes it is! An aerial is put on the top of your house - usually chimney and you recieve analogue tv waves through it. Unless you have DTT where you get digital TV.

Sorry to be an idiot but what's DX?

Doen't the NSE presenter look like the woman from DIY:SOS?

I would highly recommend a Hauppauge WinTV card.

Many users on this forum have got the WinTV USB (I haven't myself) but because its USB it should be VERY easy to set up.

I have the WinTV Nicam card, which has a lovely Philips tuner within it and receives lovely pictures and crystal clear picture capturing. (depending on your reception)

The Nicam is worth it as well, it really boosts the sound and I always get complemented on the audio of my video captures.

Also, the tuner within my TV Card is VERY sensitive and will normally pick up a DX signal from the continent when a normal TV can't. Then again, I don't have a fancy TV, its only a 14' VHF/UHF Grundig, I don't have lots of DX equipment.

Anyone can do it, I would attempt to explain what DX means but I'm sure Roxof will do a much better job, so I'll leave it to him. He knows his stuff!

Hi James,

I certainly wish my WinTV (standard Primio but still with Philips tuner FI1216Mk2 (!) ) was as good as yours reads. The slightest interference in the picture seems to get magnified out of all proportion and results in the opposite situation to you -- what looks like a really good picture on the TV (Sony) can turn out to be quite bad on the WinTV!

It's also really dodgy when picking up in the VHF band -- overly bright pictures with flaring -- compared to UHF signals. This is a downer as the primary state channel ET1 is on VHF channel 7! Fortunately, though, it is also broadcast from the next island on UHF channel 36 of all places (which gives an excellent picture if you retune your videos!), with Aegean/BBC World on 37 (which is absolutely awful 'cause of ET1).

One of these days I want to get an aerial rotator (where from tho I don't know as Maplin don't do them anymore) but I'm not sure it would stand up to the force 10 - 11 Beaufort winds we get here!

Anyway all power to your booster!

I went on that website (http://www.wolfbane.com/cgi-bin/tva.exe?), and I found out that the nearest Channel 5 transmitter is almost twice as close as the HTV one that I can receive quite well! But, I have no compass so I can't turn the aerial around the right way...