How is it Possible This Time of Year?

[AM-FM-DXer]

This afternoon, while in a vehicle in Cranston, Rhode Island, I DX'd 100.7 WYEZ/Myrtle Beach. I know that anything is possible, but how in the world is this kind of tropo audible during the dead of winter? For the record, this is the first tropo I have ever experienced in January other than in Florida.

 

[fybush]

E-skip, not tropo, and there's often a short burst of E-skip in the middle of the winter.

I had a long streak running of getting channel 3 from Tampa up here in Rochester every Christmas until the end of the analog era.

 

[AM-FM-DXer]

E-skip, not tropo, and there's often a short burst of E-skip in the middle of the winter.

I had a long streak running of getting channel 3 from Tampa up here in Rochester every Christmas until the end of the analog era.

But isn't Myrtle Beach too close for E-skip?

 

[tvnut]

It's 690 miles from Cranston to Myrtle Beach. I've had e-skip as close as 400 miles. Rare but it can happen.

 

[Xale57]

It's fun living within 10 miles of an airport. Although not considered E-skip, I do pick up stations from 100 miles away at times for a brief moment-30 seconds

 

[Route66Fan]

It's 690 miles from Cranston to Myrtle Beach. I've had e-skip as close as 400 miles. Rare but it can happen.

I think that is called "Short-Hop Skip".

 

[tvnut]

It's fun living within 10 miles of an airport. Although not considered E-skip, I do pick up stations from 100 miles away at times for a brief moment-30 seconds

That’s airplane scatter, the signal bouncing off the bottom of the fuselage.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Bunch of us radio types were out on Long Island one winter afternoon getting things on a b&w TV with an aerial on the lawn. Two stations were usually plenty for us (Ch 3 CBS and ch 8 ABC) and they were from Connecticut, anyway, not NYC.
We got all sorts of stuff that day; hadda be E-skip. In recall were the Auburn-Mississippi State football game; hams or CBers with Southern accents on ch 3, and some guy pointing to a weather map of Louisiana on ch 4 or 5.
It was no fuselage bounce. That stuff was too steady.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Bunch of us radio types were out on Long Island one winter afternoon getting things on a b&w TV with an aerial on the lawn. Two stations were usually plenty for us (Ch 3 CBS and ch 8 ABC) and they were from Connecticut, anyway, not NYC.
We got all sorts of stuff that day; hadda be E-skip. In recall were the Auburn-Mississippi State football game; hams or CBers with Southern accents on ch 3, and some guy pointing to a weather map of Louisiana on ch 4 or 5.
It was no fuselage bounce, either. That stuff was too steady.
Odd, I'd always found the winter solstice to be a frequent time for E-skip. Maybe because I don't do much FM and TV DX.

 

[MichaelD1972]

My shortest e-skip so far is 88.1 WGHW Lockwoods Folly Town, NC which is 513 miles from Clifton, NJ. So it is possible to get e-skip from the 400-700 mile range.

 

[tvnut]

Bunch of us radio types were out on Long Island one winter afternoon getting things on a b&w TV with an aerial on the lawn. Two stations were usually plenty for us (Ch 3 CBS and ch 8 ABC) and they were from Connecticut, anyway, not NYC.
We got all sorts of stuff that day; hadda be E-skip. In recall were the Auburn-Mississippi State football game; hams or CBers with Southern accents on ch 3, and some guy pointing to a weather map of Louisiana on ch 4 or 5.
It was no fuselage bounce. That stuff was too steady.

Absolutely plain ol’ e-skip. I used to joke I knew it was New Year’s Day because the local telecast of the Cotton Bowl would have a sea of interference from another Channel 2, either plus or minus offset. Happened almost every year.

 

[RockTheRadio]

Off topic but there was once a WYEZ (easy listening) at 100.7 in South Bend Indiana (now WBYT country B-100). Myrtle Beach got the calls, frequency, and the format. (Just some useless radio trivia!)

(South Bend/Elkhart’s WYEZ was Easy Listeners and later evolved into soft AC).