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Your Best FM Catch

No, E-skip literally "skips" over whatever's in between. It was very normal here in western NY to get stations on 3 in Tampa and Pensacola (right in the E-skip sweet spot of 800-1100 miles) in the analog era. 700 miles or less is very rare by E-skip. I never got WSAZ here that way, for instance.

It seems bizarre and counterintuitive until you begin to experience it regularly, and then it's actually a pretty consistent phenomenon, albeit much less common now that analog TV is gone.
 
fybush said:
One of the fun things about single-hop E-skip is that it seems so magical to a listener who doesn't know what's going on - but yet it's actually such a predictable phenomenon to an experienced DXer.

Florida, Louisiana or Texas from Western NY? That's a typical summer Es opening. It's actually the very short skip - 600 miles or less - that's much more of a rarity.
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In the early 1980s, when I was in Columbia, Mo., I was a frequent listener to St. Louis' KSHE, having put up a Channel Master outdoor FM antenna for the purpose. So that antenna was aimed ESE. Several times every summer, I'd be listening to KSHE on a fairly broadband stereo tuner (NAD 7020) when I'd hear a voice edging in from the upper sideband: "I-95!" Yes, it was Miami's WINZ-FM, pumpin' out the hits along with extremely enthusiastic announcers who must've been on their high-school cheerleading squads.

Height was not required, though. A couple of summers in the early 1970s, my family spent the summer on our farm north of Columbia. We had no outdoor antenna. Still, Houston's KPRC-TV was a regular summer visitor on channel 2. Occasionally, the skip would come in from the other direction: Saskatechwan and Alberta. E-skip was especially easy in Columbia since there were no local stations on the low VHF band.

But sometimes that wasn't even an obstacle. My high school years were in O'Fallon, Mo., well within good coverage of all the St. Louis stations. We had a small outdoor antenna. On some days in the summer, KTVI on channel 2 was practically unwatchable because of E-skip. One night, Boston's WGBH came in and overrode KTVI with the WGBH TV auction!

fybush said:
FM is so cluttered here I don't do much DX on the band anymore.
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Same here.
 
Several years ago picked up Chicoutimi, Quebec, north of Quebec City (from Cedar Rapids, IA). I thought it was a bonus to have a French-language e-skip experience.
 
icybluelake said:
Several years ago picked up Chicoutimi, Quebec, north of Quebec City (from Cedar Rapids, IA). I thought it was a bonus to have a French-language e-skip experience.
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i heard 8 seconds of meteor scatter french language skip when in PA. a broadcast engineer i know was able to ID it as a CBC rebroadcaster based upon the audio of the signal.. and goign through relevant canadian databases we found it was a statioin in the maritimes.
 
If the sporadic-E cloud was only reflecting signals from WV and nearby areas, then indeed, WSAZ would be the signal received on ch 3 during that opening. If the cloud strengthened, then that's when OH/NC ch 3s could interfere.
 
fybush said:
One of the fun things about single-hop E-skip is that it seems so magical to a listener who doesn't know what's going on - but yet it's actually such a predictable phenomenon to an experienced DXer.
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I strongly disagree. Sporadic-E still remains hard to predict. What causes it and how to predict it exactly is still unknown. Of course it's much more frequent at the 10M and 6M ham bands.

Even for experienced DXers it still a mystery because it can be behave in unexpected ways or blow up on a dime and become very short suddenly. A good example of this is the sudden mid January opening this year in the west to the top of the band. Also gave me 93.3 KXAZ Page, AZ at 543 Miles.

There is also cases that it can become so strong it can wipe out and replace even stronger locals. I've had Es replace 95.5 KKHK here with CHLB.
 
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I don’t know how many states I’ve gotten from Charleston, SC on the dial, but I’d say at least 20 over time. Most impressive are the stations I have heard numerous times from so far away. 93.9 KSWN from McCook, NE is one of them. One time I heard them skip out here when there was absolutely no other distant signals coming in. I’d say I’ve heard them at least 5 times.

I might have a better record hearing major cities on FM than AM. I’ve heard Boston, New York, Toronto, Detroit, Minneapolis, Tulsa, Dallas, Corpus Christi, Omaha, Sioux Falls, Duluth, Montreal, Kansas City at one time or another over the past 20 years, and that might be missing a few.

Tropo I’ve heard from as far as Meridian, MS to Hampton Roads to Miami.
 
I remember when Randy had the giant 2Es opening to Florida. I also remember when Randy had 2Es to Guatemala in 2021!
If my WA state FM band was nothing but Orlando/Jacksonville/Tampa on the open channels, I'd think I just died and went to Heaven...

He needs to rent the RV park for DXpeditions. AM DX must be awesome out there too.
 
crainbebo said:
I remember when Randy had the giant 2Es opening to Florida. I also remember when Randy had 2Es to Guatemala in 2021!
If my WA state FM band was nothing but Orlando/Jacksonville/Tampa on the open channels, I'd think I just died and went to Heaven...

He needs to rent the RV park for DXpeditions. AM DX must be awesome out there too.
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Would be good for HF too.

93.9 WSEK and 89.9 WKVO is still the best I've done here.
 
Mark Roberts said:
Probably the day in 1981 when, for about an hour, every FM station from Coatzacoalcos and Minatitlán, Veracruz came rushing into Columbia, Missouri, with signals so strong that they overloaded receiver front-ends. When I get home, I'll look up the date when that occurred.
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Oh, I never followed up! This happened on July 6, 1981. (H/T to Steve Green for the nudge.)
 
my best catch in Pensacola was CHUM 104.5 Toronto, I’ve picked up many stations further away but CHUM is unique because I’ve had it pop up many times and sometimes stick around for several days.

Fybush mentioned Pensacola from upstate New York. Does that mean skip works both ways at the same time?
 
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Poledo said:
my best catch in Pensacola was CHUM 104.5 Toronto, I’ve picked up many stations further away but CHUM is unique because I’ve had it pop up many times and sometimes stick around for several days.

Fybush mentioned Pensacola from upstate New York. Does that mean skip works both ways at the same time?
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Stick around all day around the clock for days?

Whnen I lived in NW PA, i was on a hill at about 2000 feet in elevation... tallest point for 150 or so miles..... stuff in Toronto/Hamilton/London/Woodstock was easy pickins... something atr some level almost every day with my 5 element yagi
 
Only FM DX here was tropo, a loooonnnng time ago, on my GE SR 1, I heard a station from The Dalles, OR for more than half an hour, here in South King County / Seattle area. I don't remember the frequency but I think it was high on the FM dial. It was surprising, to say the least. A lot of mountains in the way between here and The Dalles. Looking at the current listings, it may have been the Hood River station on 105.5, but there were spots for The Dalles.
 
Two of them here. Not being the FM DXer you folks are, I don;t know which was futher off, tower to radio.
1. Fixing up the fixer-upper here one afternoon, I tuned in the GE SR II to hear jazz, female DJ, off WRTI's 99.1 translator in Pottsville. That was back when WRTI was all jazz.
Was grooving along, until the gal said 'Jazz 99'. Wait a minute, Missy. You can't say that. WRTI Philly is 90.1.
But oh yes. She was allowed to say that. Because she then gave the request line numbers for Dade and Broward Counties. The 'How Far It Is' page says 1060 miles.
2. The crew had an LPFM in these parts for a while on 107.9. Standards/Easy Listening. I was driving the homestretch of checking the coverage off the plain ol' Topaz car radio, along the south side of the Ashland Mountain from the tower, when on came 'Too Late To Turn Back Now'. Terrific song, but that ain't us! Instead, it was an 'Oldies 1-0-8'. They played a few spots mentioning 'highway 41', and I know of no such 41 in Pennsylvania. Then some spot ran for 'locations in Sarasota and Bradenton'. Whoa now! WSRZ Sarasota. According to the How Far It Is site, that's a hop of 1000 miles. Thought I might've had the distance record for that day, but someone in Poughkeepsie NY also heard them (1104 miles).
When I got home, WSRZ had fizzled out, and in came a weak Spanish-language station. The only SS one I could find listed on 107.9 was from Key West, but I never caught an ID before they went away.
That left me stuck with us, coming in over the Ashland Mountain, from 2 air miles away.
(Fwiw: Found this work-in-progress thing on an old thumb drive:)WQDD FLyer.jpg
 
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