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A whopper of an Es log, plus more! 5/21/21

C

crainbebo

Andy Williams sang a well-known song about his favorite time of year. I think I will counter him by singing the praises of the E-skip season. It really is the "most wonderful time of the year (ding, dong! ding, dong!)". And what a wonderful hour of E-skip it was to kick it off! Texas, New Mexico, and a sliver of South Dakota. 5 new stations including my farthest single-hop Es ever (overall my second-farthest FM catch ever!) Times PT.
NO RECORDINGS. I misplaced my recorder and was finally able to find it a few moments ago. Murphy's Law, but I got one RDS hit to confirm that there was an opening going on.

5:46PM - Snippets first noted on 92.7 - Religious sermon.
6:14PM - 95.5 KAIQ Wolfforth, TX; with Erazno y la Chokolata show, strong signal at times. Relog, 100KW at 1349 miles.
6:17PM - 95.1 KABW Baird, TX; with weak ID '95.1 the Wolf,' and playlist match a little later on. This is my FARTHEST single-hop Es catch ever! NEW #742, 40KW at a whopping 1,500 miles!!! KABW's transmitter is on the SE side of Abilene. On a car radio no less...on the Kittitas valley floor. Very impressed.
6:19PM - 94.1 KZOR Hobbs, NM; with local references, mention '1RadioSquare' (their website). DJ was Ty Friend (and I recognize his enthusiastic voice from previous openings). Relog, 100KW at 1336 miles.
6:24PM - 93.7 KLBB-FM Lubbock, TX; with Tom Petty 'Runnin' Down a Dream' matching playlist. Relog, 100KW at 1349 miles.
6:26PM - 93.7 KWYR Winner, SD; with RDS 'SD and Northern NE's Rock N Roll FM.' This was WAY off from the rest of the logs...by 100s of miles. But whatever, it's Es, and it's unpredictable. Relog, 100KW at 1035 miles.
6:29PM - 90.5 KBAH Plainview, TX; with AFR IDs at the bottom of the hour. Relog, 75KW at 1326 miles.
6:33PM - 98.1 KKCL Lorenzo, TX; song match to stream, Craig Allen's Night Shift show. Relog, 36KW at 1349 miles.
6:40PM - 88.7 KRBG Umbarger, TX; with end of 'In Christ Radio' show. Searching it on my laptop in real-time brought up only one 88.7 affiliate - Radio By Grace KRBG. Relog, 9.5KW at 1263 miles.
6:45PM - 104.3 KHLK Brownfield, TX; with Through the Bible with J. Vernon McGee. Matched to KHCB schedule. Hard to believe he's been gone for over 30 years and his shows are still airing on the radio. Relog, 50KW at 1343 miles.
6:46PM - 105.9 KSEL Portales, NM; with ID '105.9 K-SEL Country'. Relog, 100KW at 1259 miles.
6:48PM - 105.5 KXCS Coahoma, TX; partial ID 'KXC...' mixed with a strong rock station (likely Taos NM). NEW #743, 5.1KW at 1430 miles. This is near Big Spring and is co-owned with KBYG Radio.
6:54PM - 92.7 KVCE Slaton, TX; finally nabbed an ID on this one with reference to VCY America and their mailing address. Mixed w/ country (likely elusive KBQL Las Vegas. IDed as Real Country and then several seconds of dead air. Ugh.) NEW #744, 33KW at 1348 miles.
6:59PM - 90.9 KRRT Arroyo Seco, NM; with KUNM ID at TOH. This is their only 90.9 satellite or translator. NEW #745, 5.1KW at 1061 miles.
7:01PM - 90.9 KKLU Lubbock, TX; with local ID 'West Texas' Positive, Encouraging K-LOVE...90.9 KKLU Lubbock, and reaching around the world at K-LOVE.com'. NEW #746, 21KW at 1348 miles.

Lots of fun to be had. Let's keep it up and have a great ionospheric summer!
 
On May 17th, I heard about five minutes of KSII 93.1 El Paso, but it was quite weak compared to other times. I also had a few other tentatives from El Paso. But this was the first nice opening of the year.
What I found really interesting was the path it took. I had 90.9 Arroyo Seco NM (which is right next to Taos). But no ABQ from just 110 miles south! Not even the 'beacon' on 95.1! It took a path from Taos through to eastern NM, and through Lubbock (no trace of Amarillo FMs, 110 miles N of Lubbock), and straight into oilfield country.
 
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Actually it did reach 108. A couple of times, but not sticking. I had a 107.9 with Loudwire Nights mixed with a very weak KJHS-LP in Wenatchee. Really suspecting KEYJ Abilene (also at the 1500-mile mark), but what's that saying again? "No ID...no log."
 
Yep, the most wonderful time of the year for FM and other VHF DXers. Congratulations on what sounds like a very nice start!

FM DX is a secondary interest for me, but I was just thinking about E-skip season being at hand. And I have to admit, I'm looking forward to getting down to the Gulf coadst the week after next, and hopefully getting e-skip with a side of tropo.....or vice versa!
 
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Great catches, crainbebo!

Since I've never heard any E-Skip in Hawaii and I miss this time of year from when I was in Florida, I will just have to live vicariously through those of you who here who report your catches.

;)

​

 
That's the bad part about AK and HI, and why I wouldn't live there. Summers are a dead zone on the radio. Too far from everything on FM.
Meanwhile, the Kittitas Valley proves once again to be a great place for FM DX. My friend Kyle (DX_Sphere) was up at Blewett Pass at that same time, and no Es was heard. I must have been near the cloud cut-off. But if I drove I-90 out to Moses Lake or Ritzville, the signals would likely be blistering strong, as they were in Boise. A DXer there had locals wiped out.
And then there's the elevation factor. The million-dollar question that we'll never know. Would I have had stronger reception at the Lost Lake 4800' level like I did last July 7th (when locals were wiped out and I heard over 40 new ones)?
 
When I was a high school junior living in Hawaii in the mid-60s, half of the FM band...along with VHF TV channels 5 and 6....were reserved for the military. Although, at that time, they weren't using it. There were only a handful of FM stations, so even inter-island FM DX was something of a moot point. That said, on TV channels from the other islands, you could sometimes get a tropo efect.

As for AM DX during summer, I wasn't there during the summer months. But given that thunderstorms are quite rare in Hawaii, and that summer nighttime hours are longer in tropical latitudes than locations farther note, AM DX in summer might be less of a "lost cause" than might otherwise be expected. Just a guess on my part.
 
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Friday afternoon 5/21 about 5:45 MST, I received KPPW 88.7 Williston, ND in the parking lot of a Walmart west of Phoenix, AZ (over "local" KPNG). It even locked in HD for a few seconds too, displaying "PPB" as the Station ID. KYYZ 96.1, also in Williston, was also coming in and out. There was also another country station fading in and out over the local translator on 92.7 (didn't get any IDs for that one).
 
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