Before the days of the computerized sites for Tropo or eSkip, what frequencies/stations did you DXers use as indicators that something odd was afoot?
And might you still have a car preset or two to punch up, far from the home PC screen? (Tell the truth now, :- )
A good indicator frequency for Tropo, both on Long Island and here, has been 94.7. Conveniently, the revealing station at both locations has been WDSD in Delaware! And wow, WDSD also has been Country for at least 33 years. So it's a pretty faithful standard by which to proceed. I hear cowboy records in the car on 94.7, I hustle home.
On Long Island, both hometown WGBB Freeport and WFAS (from 'upstate' White Plains) were infallible beacons for Auroral activity. If you were, say, near the old Shea Stadium in northern Queens, and both WFAS and WGBB were rock-solid groundwave in the car at 10PM, the great Northern Lights were doing their thing.
Here in Coal Country PA, the omni graveyarders WAZL Hazleton (1490) and WPAM Pottsville (1450) were the ones to monitor.
Lol -- if I hear a Tampa Bay Rays game on 1490 at 10PM, loud and clarion atop the frequency, it is from WAZL. Joe Maddon the team manager is from Hazleton. Reception like that makes me want to look for more stations actually from Florida which carry Rays games.
Have any of you folks had (or have) car pre-sets .... just in case .... for those crucial reception times?
And might you still have a car preset or two to punch up, far from the home PC screen? (Tell the truth now, :- )
A good indicator frequency for Tropo, both on Long Island and here, has been 94.7. Conveniently, the revealing station at both locations has been WDSD in Delaware! And wow, WDSD also has been Country for at least 33 years. So it's a pretty faithful standard by which to proceed. I hear cowboy records in the car on 94.7, I hustle home.
On Long Island, both hometown WGBB Freeport and WFAS (from 'upstate' White Plains) were infallible beacons for Auroral activity. If you were, say, near the old Shea Stadium in northern Queens, and both WFAS and WGBB were rock-solid groundwave in the car at 10PM, the great Northern Lights were doing their thing.
Here in Coal Country PA, the omni graveyarders WAZL Hazleton (1490) and WPAM Pottsville (1450) were the ones to monitor.
Lol -- if I hear a Tampa Bay Rays game on 1490 at 10PM, loud and clarion atop the frequency, it is from WAZL. Joe Maddon the team manager is from Hazleton. Reception like that makes me want to look for more stations actually from Florida which carry Rays games.
Have any of you folks had (or have) car pre-sets .... just in case .... for those crucial reception times?