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DXing the Weather Band

cyberdad

cyberdad

Have any of you guys tried DXing the Weather Band? I can't say that I've spent much time with it. But, as posted previously, I do have weather band on my car radio.

So this morning, I'm driving along in the car listening to my local forecast, when my local NOAA weather station (KXI41) on 162.500 suddenly goes off. It gets replaced by Fon Du Lac, Wisconsin (WWG87). Weak, but listenable, 1kw at approximately 115 miles away. Not exactly something to get excited about, but not too shabby either. I had it for about 2-3 minutes until the local came back on.
 
I should probably spend more time seeing what might be possible with the car radio. My SRF 37s (two of them) have weather band, but it's pretty useless. At home, I'm two miles from my local's stick, so it overloads and spreads out over all seven channels....LOL.

But the car radio is pretty good. "Normal" range seems to be about 60-70 miles from a "shark fin" antenna. Milwaukee is 65 miles, and that one is reasonably reliable. I'll have to remember to give it a try next summer during tropo season.
 
I've heard e-skip on the weather band. In fact, for a weather radio without SAME, if there's a tornado warning during an e-skip opening, the weather radio will go off for a tornado 1000 miles away.
 
I've heard the local NOAA station mixing with the next one 80 miles or so away during tropo enhancement. On an old multibander with the VHF hi band.
 
Earlier this week during tropo enhancement, I logged my second new NOAA weather station of the year, WXJ98, 162.400 MHz, from Amistad Village, TX, 141 miles to the west. I had never tried DXing the band until late last September, and I'm looking forward to more of it with the tropo and sporadic-e seasons starting up.

I've just been using a CC Solar Observer and a CC-2E barefoot, and I can regularly hear a local S.A. station and (weakly) a station transmitting from Geronimo, TX, 44 miles away.

My furthest loggings are both from Texas - Rio Grande City (WNG601) and Pharr (WZ2541) at 221 and 236 miles, respectively. The latter broadcasts mostly in Spanish and at only 300 watts.
 
jim-satx said:
...... I had never tried DXing the band until late last September, and I'm looking forward to more of it with the tropo and sporadic-e seasons starting up.....
Click to expand...

You've got some nice catches there already. And you're in what should be a great spot for tropo, so I'll be anxious to learn about what turns up.
 
Back in the early 70's when I was in New Jersey, my older brother was home for the summer from being away at the University of Miami and I remember he had one of these muiti band radios.

I think it was on the VHF band where he showed me that the major airports at the time broadcasted weather information.

Sometime during the broadcast, there was a series of what sounded like musical tones, maybe to help identify a specific airport.

So I guess we were having E skip one time when he pointed out that we were hearing the broadcast from Miami International Airport about 1000 miles away.
 
Yes, NOAAs have been heard by Es, but it takes a REALLY good Es opening (like, less than one on one hundred) to get the Es MUF to 162 MHz (I've heard one by Es, but it faded out before the ID).

They get out incredibly well during tropo openings, too.
 
This past weekend I was in SE Texas near the Angelina National Forest area, and there was some really strong tropo going on. I managed to log two new stations - WNG653 in Mt. Pleasant, TX, and WNG521, in Bogalusa, LA, both on 162.525. The LA station was 247 miles away, which is my new weather band record.

Both of those catches were made on my CC Pocket radio. It seems to receive weather band stations just as well as my CC Solar Observer, although it requires stretching the earbud antenna in various positions.
 
There was some good tropo in south central Texas this week for the first time since September, and on Friday morning I logged a new NOAA weather station, KEC56 in Dallas. The broadcast was listing conditions in Wichita Falls, Abilene, and Waco, and that was followed by the 8 a.m. observations at DFW airport and the local forecast for the DFW metroplex.

The catch was made on a CC Skywave (which has good WX band reception), and it's a new distance record for me at 257 miles.
 
I've done some DXing of the weather bands on an older Kenwood dual band HT but never got the results some of you guys have. From Central Mississippi I heard the Star City, Arkansas transmitter once, but that was a distance of only about 75 miles, if I recall. My record is here on the Gulf Coast, hearing the Buras, Louisiana transmission from Foley, about 135 miles from where I live. Most of that is over flat salt water, though. That's WXL41 and it is on the same channel as the (currently out of service) transmitter in Brewton, Alabama, so not only was a distance catch it was overriding something much closer. Otherwise, I only hear local/semi-local signals. I'm surrounded by them and none really put a strong signal into my QTH. .550 is Mobile; .425 is Leakesville, MS; .500 is Jackson, AL; .400 is Pensacola, FL; and .475 is Brewton, AL/Buras, LA.
 
Cyberdad - Thanks. I'm always scanning the band when conditions are good to see what I can catch. On Wednesday morning I logged another new one: KHB33 on 162.4 in Pharr, TX, at 234 miles. Normally I only get a Victoria station on this frequency when there's tropo, but there was a good opening to the south on that day. I knew it wasn't Victoria when the forecast included Port Mansfield, and I confirmed it was Pharr when I heard "broadcasting to the Rio Grande Valley from the National Weather Service offices in Brownsville."

Tomservo - I've had my best successes with long catches during good tropo openings. When tropo is poor, 60-70 miles is about the very maximum distance I can catch. I'm hoping to log some NOAA stations via e-skip one day.
 
Carltheradioguy said:
Weather Band dxing is great, I used a Midland WR-120 and I can catch quite a bit from Connecticut. I catch many signals across the northeast.
Click to expand...

I'd like to do more of it. But I've got one Transmitter in my own town 162.500, and four others within about 50 miles. Each of which produces a reliable signal. My SRF-37 Walkman is pretty much useless for WB DX with the local bleeding all over it.. I do have a good WB radio in the car. Original equipment. I use it to check my local forecasts quite a bit, but I almost never think to DX with it.
 
I'll DX with the cc radio plus on the weather band. From Ottawa, I've pulled in Watertown, New York with a reliable signal many times.
 
mimo said:
I'll DX with the cc radio plus on the weather band. From Ottawa, I've pulled in Watertown, New York with a reliable signal many times.
Click to expand...

Off the top of my head, I'm going to guess that Watertown is probably about 75 miles/120km from you. Assuming I'm correct or close, that's not bad at all.
 
I think it might be further than that. Watertown AM barely makes a sound here and FM almost never does. It's still quite a reach for the weather band to be that reliable here.
 
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