Rather than review all the different types of equipment available to the TVDXer (I'll leave that to more generic DX sites) this page aims to show everything I use for the hobby.

The D100 TV converter
Probably the most useful investment I've ever made for DXing, if only I'd known how good they are compared to multi-standard televisions I'd have bought one years before I did. For an overview on how it works I can do no better than quote from the HS Publications catalogue.

"The D-100 exploits the double-superhet principle of operation in which the television receiver functions as another I.F. Further improvements in selectivity can be achieved by making small fine tuning adjustments to the TV when interfering carriers are encountered.

The dial tuning found on many small-screen monochrome portables provides an easy and convenient means of fine selectivity adjustment and the most pleasing results will be obtained with such a receiver, especially when using bandwidth reduction.

A second output feeds an FM radio for sound. By simply matching the sound to the picture, multi-system reception is achieved, without the need for a special TV set or complicated modifications."

From experience there are two optimum tuning points on the television, one for narrow IF and another for the wider settings so these are both stored on my Thomson 10" portable, the same multistandard television I purchased back in 1984! Reduced IF bandwidth means in practise I can seperate IA and E3 or R2 and E4, even TV Luna and E2. The audio output is fed into the Kenwood FM tuner and with the correct sound spacing I can use two memories of 105.5 and 106.5 for audio monitoring on the viewed picture. As mentioned elsewhere the D100 also works very well on OIRT and Italian feeders, rapid tuning of the dials allows me to quickly find any signals on the band before I locate the exact frequency on my Icom 8500.



The Log Periodic
A few years ago I was looking to experiment on the higher R channels due to the congestion and interference on the lower two, I made a five element yagi that performed quite well but couldn't be mounted too high on the mast due to the existing yagis. This made me think about a log periodic, modest gain but very wideband coverage and on a shortish boom. Various UK based companies were tried but none offered exactly what I was after and one company said they didn't build them as there was no demand. So, a search on the net took me to KMA Antennas in the States, the owner Ed was very helpful and modelled a number of designs before settling on a 20 element array on a 4.3m boom and covering 25-100MHz. A couple of weeks and several hundred dollars later it arrived, installing it was 'interesting' with rear elements nearly 20ft long each side! The performance is nothing short of stunning, having gain and directivity from 25Mhz to above Band II FM is amazing, gain is around 5.5Dbd across it's range which although not in the same league as a narrow band long boom yagi means I am able to use it on all Band 1 channels as well as CB, 10m, low VHF, 6m, 4m and BII broadcast, IE everything I'm interested in.