It's fun when this happens...

Interesting atmospheric conditions tonight... Listening to FM radio stations from Lubbock Texas, to Topeka Kansas, to Springfield Missouri... And I'm in Boise, Idaho! Just tuned in KFMX, then KXUS now listening to KVOB, and several more in between. (Lots of country music in those parts, apparently.) Sure, this sort of thing will happen sometimes, but it is quite unusual for this to occur from midnight until well after 2 AM, especially at this latitude, and it's even more rare when it fills the dial from to bottom with strong signals, for hours on end. VHF Ham radio people must be having a party tonight!

I'm just using the stock radio tuner in my 2008 Dodge Ram pickup... It's probably the most sensitive and selective tuner I own. There is a lot of fading and mixing going on, but when I was receiving KFMX out of Lubbock, it had a clean stereo image. Crazy strong signals! It's starting to fade a little now, but there is still plenty to tune in out there.

Multiplex said:

Interesting atmospheric conditions tonight... Listening to FM radio stations from Lubbock Texas, to Topeka Kansas, to Springfield Missouri... And I'm in Boise, Idaho! Just tuned in KFMX, then KXUS now listening to KVOB, and several more in between. (Lots of country music in those parts, apparently.) Sure, this sort of thing will happen sometimes, but it is quite unusual for this to occur from midnight until well after 2 AM, especially at this latitude, and it's even more rare when it fills the dial from to bottom with strong signals, for hours on end. VHF Ham radio people must be having a party tonight!

I'm just using the stock radio tuner in my 2008 Dodge Ram pickup... It's probably the most sensitive and selective tuner I own. There is a lot of fading and mixing going on, but when I was receiving KFMX out of Lubbock, it had a clean stereo image. Crazy strong signals! It's starting to fade a little now, but there is still plenty to tune in out there.

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Once each summer two years in a row TV channel 2 (also RF 2) in North Platte came thru like next door for a couple of hours (air distance 1130 miles). Because it's the same network as the local Buffalo channel 2 (RF 33) I didn't notice until the commercials. Sponsors I never heard of before selling mega farm equipment. We have a lot of dairy and corn around here but nobody uses Godzilla scale combines.

Good thing I have low VHF capability:

I know exactly what your describing here about receiving clear radio stations from other distant parts of the country. I remember, as a teenager (back in the early 70's) one of the things that I would like to do during the late evenings would be to put on a pair of comfortable headphones plug into a receiver and tune the dial slowly up and down the scale and tune into these distant radio stations. Some would come in so clear and the FM Stereo light would light up, that it felt that they were just a couple of miles from your place! Others would just come in then slowly fade out after a few times. It was pretty cool and I would get a kick out of it just to listen to these other far off radio stations! :yes:

I've had this happen before several times, and so far, I think the farthest I've pulled in would be Minnesota and a few other areas around the Great Lakes at around 1,150+ miles. I once got Star 102.5 out of Des Moines Iowa for several hours one morning in clear stereo, and that is at a distance of 1,155 miles... But, last night was interesting, because it was, well, night. It seems that I can usually get FM skip starting in early-afternoon to evening, and it fades at sundown. Last night it was hot, practically all night, yet yesterday afternoon, there was nothing. That was different, at least for around this area. I haven't checked yet today...

Which Springfield station did you get?

There was one day when I was doing a lot of driving for work that a local station (probably 75 miles from where I was at the time) was drowned out by one from the middle of Florida. The atmosphere is a weird thing.

loopstick said:

Once each summer two years in a row TV channel 2 (also RF 2) in North Platte came thru like next door for a couple of hours (air distance 1130 miles). Because it's the same network as the local Buffalo channel 2 (RF 33) I didn't notice until the commercials. Sponsors I never heard of before selling mega farm equipment. We have a lot of dairy and corn around here but nobody uses Godzilla scale combines.

Good thing I have low VHF capability:

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I think I need me one of those! That's a nice yagi!

R-2-R said:

I know exactly what your describing here about receiving clear radio stations from other distant parts of the country. I remember, as a teenager (back in the early 70's) one of the things that I would like to do during the late evenings would be to put on a pair of comfortable headphones plug into a receiver and tune the dial slowly up and down the scale and tune into these distant radio stations. Some would come in so clear and the FM Stereo light would light up, that it felt that they were just a couple of miles from your place! Others would just come in then slowly fade out after a few times. It was pretty cool and I would get a kick out of it just to listen to these other far off radio stations! :yes:

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That brings back good memories of what I used to do on boring college nights back in Iowa.:thmbsp:

Sam Cogley said:

Which Springfield station did you get?

There was one day when I was doing a lot of driving for work that a local station (probably 75 miles from where I was at the time) was drowned out by one from the middle of Florida. The atmosphere is a weird thing.

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It is weird!

I got several, but the strongest was KXUS, at 97.3. Looking it up, it has a 100kW stick, so it's no wonder. I could have probably gotten more, but the dial is very packed where I'm at. What was strange is that I was getting stations from Texas mixing in at the same time.

So... I just went out to my truck to see if there was anything going on in the FM band today, and there is nothing... Just local stuff. Back to normal, I guess.

Reception of VHF signals beyond the RF horizon can be caused by tropospheric ducting and or sporadic E skip.

I used to chase FM broadcast band and television DX.

I would send reception reports to the stations that I heard or viewed and some would return a QSL card (a card confirming reception).

Of course when the FM broadcast band would open up, I would start looking for DX on the 6 meter (50 MHz) and above amateur radio bands.

The ONLY thing I miss about Ca is the availability of FM radio, here in good old Stuart Fl it's an FM wasteland. And as it's also the lightning capital of the world I get shivers up my spine every time I consider installing an outside antenna.

Martin

JBL GUY said:

Reception of VHF signals beyond the RF horizon can be caused by tropospheric ducting and or sporadic E skip.

I used to chase FM broadcast band and television DX.

I would send reception reports to the stations that I heard or viewed and some would return a QSL card (a card confirming reception).

Of course when the FM broadcast band would open up, I would start looking for DX on the 6 meter (50 MHz) and above amateur radio bands.

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Thats interesting stuff... I wonder if it is usually bi-directional, or is usually only one-way? Was the midwest rocking out to the kickin' sounds of boring Boise radio, too?

In general it will be bi-directional.

These conditions are what allow us amateur radio operators to make VHF and above contacts over greater than RF horizon distances.

Long distance UHF paths are usually the result of tropospheric ducting.

These same conditions caused problems for professional users of these frequencies, first responders such as law enforcement, fire departments and so on.

Other regions of the ionosphere are responsible for the long distance propagation of signals in other frequency ranges, such as long distance propagation of AM broadcast band signals at night.

Amateur radio operators make use of the the various regions of the ionosphere to facilitate communications on various bands or frequencies.

JBL GUY said:

In general it will be bi-directional.

These conditions are what allow us amateur radio operators to make VHF and above contacts over greater than RF horizon distances.

Long distance UHF paths are usually the result of tropospheric ducting.

These same conditions caused problems for professional users of these frequencies, first responders such as law enforcement, fire departments and so on.

Other regions of the ionosphere are responsible for the long distance propagation of signals in other frequency ranges, such as long distance propagation of AM broadcast band signals at night.

Amateur radio operators make use of the the various regions of the ionosphere to facilitate communications on various bands or frequencies.

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What he said! de KF8XO...sk

Interesting...

There is an old Boise urban legend dating back to the 1980's, that a microwave STL signal (studio to transmitter link,) from an FM station in San Francisco once overtook one side of a local Boise station's dual STL system. Their audio was clear as a bell in one channel of the station's audio for a short time before it faded, never to return. It hung around long enough to grab a call sign to verify where the signal had come from. It seems unlikely, but I guess stranger things have happened.

It happens here maybe a couple-3 times a year, usually on one of those clear, cool days in October or late March/April, when the sky is that BRILLIANT "Chrome Blue", & low humidity..I've picked up from Roanoke, Virginia to Warner-Robins, Georgia, & over near Charlotte, from here in NE Tennessee..

Sandy G said:

It happens here maybe a couple-3 times a year, usually on one of those clear, cool days in October or late March/April, when the sky is that BRILLIANT "Chrome Blue", & low humidity..I've picked up from Roanoke, Virginia to Warner-Robins, Georgia, & over near Charlotte, from here in NE Tennessee..

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Lake Ontario is huge obstruction-free and constant-temperature expanse that throughout the summer frequently brings a variety of markets into western NY, including Hamilton, Toronto, Peterborough, Belleville, Kingston, and even Ottawa. It was more fun in the analog days because you would just point the antenna and surf, then bump the antenna and resurf, etc. Now you have to do these stupid scans which is a huge buzzkill. :thumbsdn:

edit: oops, I should mention I'm talking about TV in the Tuners forum.

The mountains/topography do WEIRD things to Tropo Skip here...As does the OPPRESSIVE humidity, I'm sure..

TVs do have tuners...

For those who have tinkered with this, how well does digital tv work during skip, (especially at its new position in the spectrum,) and what about HD FM? I have never had good luck getting HD AM over skip. It usually will only come in for a few seconds at a time. Never tried FM, or digital TV. It doesn't seem as though it would work very well.

Out here in the west, there are spans of hundreds of miles between metropolitan areas, so for me to receive a digital TV channel here, it would likely have to travel for at least 200 miles. And the nearest radio market with HD FM would likely be 300+ miles... So, probably not terribly likely. Though, the advantage of being out here would likely be less noise and clutter in the band.

JBL Guy covered it nicely but also depending on conditions and the type of antenna(s) you are using along with the receiver can be something you want to seek out more info about. Long Path, Short path reception are also topics to look into if folks are curious to investigate further.

Stacked arrays (Do a search of EME arrays, EME antennas, multi-bay antennas) and look at the set up some Amateur Radio operators employ.

I have built many multi-bay antenna systems for 2 Meters and 70 Centimeters. A couple of these were entirely home made from wire, PVC and a few metal plates, an Azmouth rotor (A Rotor that moves up and down as well as side to side) to orient the antenna array to the desired location. The antennas were 8-12 elements each using a Quagi design. (Think part quad/part Yagi) then using a home brew coupling harness or power divider was able to communicate to distant stations. The low cost materials used (rotor was not inexpensive these things cost $$$). My point is the antennas are cheap easy to build and work very well.

These work great as stand alone receive antennas as single or multiple arrays.
I will be building a stack array soon as my prior antennas I built are now at friend's homes who convinced me to either give or just sale them an antenna for costs of parts.

Plans for these are on the internet and I would venture to guess that if a couple of the 12 element Quagis set up correctly would work very well for someone not just in their local are listening but for FM DX.

Basically think of a flat square reflector, a flat square driven element and the rest consisting of yagi style elements in or on a boom pointed at the signal source. The F/B (Front to Back ration of unwanted signal from behind) and the F/S (Front to Side relational ) taken into consideration with a 12 element Quagi would give approximately 13-15 dB forward gain gives quite a receive boost and helps eliminate other signal being injected with the desired DX station. This antenna is well known by Amateurs for many years and used in the 144-148, 420-450 and higher Spectrum frequencies for communication.

These even in pairs or quads configurations are lightweight, easily supported and work with inexpensive TV type rotors for turning. An Azmouth Rotor can used but not necessary for regular FM listening.

You just use feed line like 75 OHM coax, 300 Ohm Twin lead or the other feed lines available. You don't need much more but a mast and get it up high enough to obtain good reception. Of course if using a rotor a cable to control the rotor is needed.

Sorry to be long winded but thought this might fit into the thread and give folks some ideas who might want to increase their receive ability for a little work and for little cash outlay.

Hermit