• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

California E's

I'm in central Virginia, ~80 miles to the coast. I have a rotor-mounted 150" 7 element yagi on the roof.

In 6 years, I've seen 1000 mile fm dx once. Best normal distance is about 100 miles. Extended coverage, maybe half the days of the summer, is another 50 to 125 miles. Every couple of years, it'll hit 300 miles (New York city area). Part of that path is over water.

That might partly be a function of a crowded market. Very few 'empty' channels... none, really. There's something on every frequency, except those blanketed by HD.
 
For 17 mins there was something over NoCal...around 9pm

I had my TV on look for a skip nothing, it was like in the 50

It avoided my area
 
If the skip is pointing away from Mexico and Canada, don't look at the TV. Keep the FM tuned on a low 88-92 frequency for skip, then go higher as it gets stronger and you get IDs.

-crainbebo
 
If you have a scanner and outdoor antenna let it scan 50.0 -50.8 MHz. That is 6m amatuer band. There are beacons all over the US, Mexico, and Canada. Map and ID is at http://www.k9mu.com/map/

Unless there is one in your immedaite neighborhood, you will hear nothing so set the squelch so it is barely quiet. When skip of any kind starts you will hear the beacons start to come in. When that happens the skip may get as high as FM so it may be time to start listening at the low end of the FM band.

If you can read the ID (in morse - CW) you might even be able to get the direction of the opening.
 
MarioMania said:
What do you mean pointing away??

I'm on http://www.vhfdx.info/spots/map.php?Lan=E&Frec=MUF&ML=M&Map=NA&DXC=N&HF=N&GL=N site..

If I see a 50, I turn on FM on 88-92??
Click to expand...


The way it works is that you don't look for these spots to pop up directly over you but roughly 500 miles away from where you are located.

That's the half way point where the signal skips off the invisible Es cloud to you from it's point of origin the same distance on the other side of the spot.

If you want to get any possible FM catches, you need one of those numbered spots to be 88 or higher.

Let's say you have a spot with a number '95' at the right distance away from you. That means you can possibly hear a distant station on the FM band from the bottom of the dial (88 Mhz) up to 95 Mhz on the dial.

If the Es spot goes up to 108 or higher, that means the entire FM band could have skip.

But one thing to note is that just because these Es spots show up at 500 or so miles away doesn't always mean you will hear any E Skip because the height of the Es cloud may not be quite right for the path of slip to go directly to your location.
 
If you want to get E Skip from Mexico on ch 2, you have to look for that '60' to be half way between where you are and Mexico.
 
Mario, the best thing to do [if skip is pointed toward i.e. NE or KS, and not Mexico] is to get a scanner and scan the 6m band, like another poster said. Then try FM, because TV won't work when skip is toward the East due to the DTV transition. There is no such thing as KWGN 2 anymore on analog, but the Mexicans and some Canadians are still around.

-crainbebo
 
The dry line that forms up in West Texas and Eastern NM often brings SoCal FM booming in. I've stopped under a dry line and had stable reception for hours, and can even drive under it when it moves, keeping the skip alive. I quite likely have listened to KIIS more hours in West Texas than I have when occasionally visiting Los Angeles. As with all skip, it is reciprocal - the problem is a lot of the areas of Eastern NM and West Texas are remote without a lot of stations. I would imagine things from Roswell, Clovis, Midland, Lubbock, and Amarillo would come out there, but with the crowding of the band in SoCal - you might never notice. A dry line starting back in Albuquerque is rare, sometimes they make it Dallas, but most of the time they have stabilized into full blown storm fronts by then, and the reflective nature of the dry / moist transition largely lost.
 
K6JHU said:
I've noticed here just outside ABQ that what overwhlems the locals is further east, such as Austin.
Click to expand...

That makes sense, it would be a shorter hop with the dry line to your East. And Austin has some monsters, most people think about those Cedar Hill Towers in Dallas and forget that Austin has some good DX targets, too. So does San Antonio. From West Texas, the dry line ofter brought in Houston as well.
 
What exactly is this 'dry line' you refer to? I've never heard that term. Sounds more weather related than E Skip related.
 
gar fla said:
What exactly is this 'dry line' you refer to? I've never heard that term. Sounds more weather related than E Skip related.
Click to expand...

People used to call me nuts when I claimed I could see thunderstorms brew up out of a clear sky over West Texas. First completely blue skies. Then a line of fluffy white clouds start to form. They start getting bigger and merging. The burst upwards and lightning and rain start. Sometimes in just a few minutes, sometimes the process takes hours. Now meteorologists widely recognize the phenomenon. Cold dry air coming from the Rockies hits warm moist tropical air from the Gulf, and where they meet - storms form. When the imbalance is not immediately resolved, the boundary of the air masses is like a mirror for FM. If the line is to the West of your location, look for FM from the West. If it is to the East of your location, look for FM from the East.
 
Isn't this the same dry line that allows you to hear Los Angeles FM, in West Texas? Or was that just a good Es opening?

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
Isn't this the same dry line that allows you to hear Los Angeles FM, in West Texas? Or was that just a good Es opening?

-crainbebo
Click to expand...

Yes, it was. Sometimes the dry line forms very far to the West in NM bring in Phoenix and Los Angeles. I've even had good luck on Southern California DX when it was almost overhead, the reflected layer must have been tilted just right. The only instability is when it starts moving. On one occasion, the dry line was over a gas station near Ralls where I was getting gas and taking a break. It started to move - and took the LA stations with it. I started driving again, and picked up LA stations again in Crosbyton. The uneven terrain past Crosbyton destablized the dry line and - that occasion - it dissipated. The dry line effect that day was probably about 5 miles wide. Other times, it is wider and the DX lasts for hours - that is usually when it is far to the West and virtually stuck out there, or stalled to the East. One day I had Branson MO stations along I-40 for about 70 miles, before I drove out of the alignment. The next day I heard about storms that eventually moved through the area out there, with several tornados.

I've often wondered if maybe the storm chasers could use this information to predict severe storms.
 
gar fla said:
What is a dry line?

Never heard that term. Sounds weather related instead of E Skip.
Click to expand...

The dry line is where the cool, dry air from the Rocky Mountains meets the warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. It is a meteorological term, but its RF reflective characteristics are well known in West Texas by DX'ers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_line
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom