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E Skip season is here

D

dx1ng

Monday evening (May 3) I got my first FM E-Skip logs of the season from Poughkeepsie, NY. I heard WWUS-104.1 from the Florida Keys shortly after 5pm in the car. At home, I logged 250 watt translator W265BV-100.9 from Okeechobee, FL, relaying WOKC-1570AM. Also "Arrow 95.9" caught at 6:30pm, with classic rock from Springfield, FL. Then only my second Bahamas, "Splash-92.5", Spirit-Gospel at 7:15pm. I don't know much about this station, I think it's new. Anyone have city or power info? Looks like this East Coast E-skip was in much of the afternoon, so I missed most of it.

Also scanning TV between 5:30 and 6pm, I had a show in Spanish on ch 3 with puppets and real people, kind of like Sesame Street. Channel 4 had color bars and high pitched tone. On channel 5 a male news sounding announcer with lots of video footage (may be a documentary... in Spanish). Signals were weak, and not ID'd. Other Spanish signals noted later in the evening on ch 2, 3, 4, & 5.

On Tuesday May 4, no E-Skip here, but it looks like parts of the Western half of the US had some skip through much of the day. Nice early start to the e-skip season... let's have some more!!!
 
www.spGospel.com is the 92.5 site.....I live in south FL (you know me) but I've never ever heard this one, even from the Florida Keys. Great catch.

Your Spanish Es are likely all Cuba. Ch 4 with the color bars is likely Canal Educativo in Havana.

cd
 
I also heard this early E skip Monday afternoon, hearing stations down in FL. I have identified several Miami stations, some Tampa stations, also along the central FL Atlantic coast south of Daytona Beach. 3 stations had my Sony XDR-F1HD displayed the calls WAVW, (Melbourne area), WLYF Miami, and WZZR (Melbourne area), and their HD locking in, the HD icon showed on the display. No HD subchannels were heard.
The Miami FMs I heard were WCMQ 92.3, WHDR 93.1, WMGE 94.9, WXDJ 95.7, WPOW 96.5, WLYF 101.5, and WIRK 107.9.

The stations in Tampa and maybe surrounding area are WYUU 92.5, WFLA 93.3, WIKX 92.9, WSMR 89.1 (Sarasota).

Some unknowns: 105.5 with hip hop format, Spanish on 93.5, 92.1 playing Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now," 92.3 playing a Bruce Hornsby song, 91,5 with religion, 92.9 "Lite FM", and classic rock on 94.5.
The weather pattern must have led to E skip; there was a frontal boundary along the Appalaichan Mountains, line of thunderstorms along cental Gulf Coast and clear skies over much of Florida.
 
I've kept the old analog NTSC processors, for 2, 4 and 5 in our MATV system, cranked on full since June.
Started seeing some substantial DX on them yesterday morning again. I'm assuming these are from Mexico, due to the antenna direction (SW) and shielding from the building.
 
I'm all ready to get some sporadic E catches this season now that I have a real dood receiver but nothing yet.

I was also wondering if there were any forecast/prediction maps like there are for tropo but as we know, E clouds are unpredictable.

Here's something I found but I confess don't know how to interpret it. I also don't see the specific FM frequencies listed either.


http://www.vhfdx.net/spots/map.php?Lan=E&Frec=MUF&ML=M&Map=NA


Can anyone interpret this so it may be useful for FM?
 
I'm going to be in West Sacramento for a week on the 8th going to bring

Casio Pocket TV 2.3
Sony Watchman 2.3
Realistic DX-380

Hope I catch something, the Weather going to be in the 70's there
 
E-skip is unpredictable, but tends to cluster together. If you hear e-skip one day, tune around the next day or later in the day. I've heard e-skip in the morning one day, it faded out, and came back in the evening and the next day. I even keep one of my presets set to 92.1, which is static. During e-skip season, I tune to 92.1 and see if I hear anything on it. So find the lowest frequency above 92.1 that is completely clear (no IBUZ or strong adjacents) and set it as one of your presets.
 
I've never experienced any significant e skip in the evening after it's dark.

Seems the best times have been late morning/early afternoon and then late afternoon/early evening (when it's still light).
 
gar fla said:
Here's something I found but I confess don't know how to interpret it. I also don't see the specific FM frequencies listed either.


http://www.vhfdx.net/spots/map.php?Lan=E&Frec=MUF&ML=M&Map=NA


Can anyone interpret this so it may be useful for FM?
Click to expand...

I find this site very valuable. If you click on "50 mHz", you'll see reported skip paths at the current time at 50mHz, which is just below TV channel 2. If there's only a few stray lines or no lines at all, there's not much going on. But if you see lots of lines close together or crossing, then there is active skip at the low end of the TV dial and the more lines you see, the more likely you're reaching channels up through 5 & 6, and into the FM band.

When you see a lot of lines click on "ES MUF" to get back to map the original link went to. You'll see clusters of numbers.... those clusters roughly correspond to where the E-Cloud is geographically. If you're seeing numbers of 60 and higher, you might start to see some skip reaching the FM band. What you really want to see are numbers above 100.

To DX off a E-Skip cloud, you have to be less than 750 miles from such a cluster. But you can't be too close either.... the stronger the cloud (the bigger the numbers), the closer you can be to receive skip, but usually 400 miles is about as close as you can be. The stations you receive will lie approximately the same distance (in a straight line) on the other side of the cloud. (If there's Ocean there, you won't hear anything because there are no stations there to DX, but if a DXer were on a boat in that region, they'd be able to DX your locals!!) It's very frustrating when the cloud is very close or over head... you can't DX off of it at all.... but someone else 600 or so miles away is getting great DX bouncing overhead from you. I'll see a cloud over my New York State location, and hear about DXers in Kentucky getting the Canadian Maritimes, but for me, there's not a trace of DX!

With analog TV gone in the US, I now rely on these maps more than ever. By the way, The very-open channels 2-6 on TV leave the door wide open for some great foreign TV DX. Most DXers in the USA are at the right distant to receiver either Mexico/Cuba and other Latin American TV DX, and/or Canadian TV DX, which all still operate on these channels in analog mode.

You'll get a better feel for these maps the more you use them. Hope this helps.
 
Thanks.

I also figured that if I see activity listed in the 144 MHZ section, it's a given the FM band below that will be active as well.
 
I sure miss the old days of analog TV and before cable.

When I was growing up in New Jersey, I used to get so excited on those hot summer days when the lower VHF channels would light up. I always liked the hum of thise thick bars that would roll across the screen. I would mostly look at it on my TV in my room that was connected to the antenna on the roof which faced New York 80 miles away but when the e skip happened, the New York stations 2, 4, and 5 would be completely wiped out by the distant ones.

It also seemed that so much of the time, the channels were from Florida and especially channel 2 from Orlando and Miami would sometimes come in near perfect for very short bursts of time.

Even one time, I remember our local channel 3 from Philadelphia was taken over for a short time by channel 3 from Tampa.

Then in the afternoon, the stations seemed to favor the central part of the country. Then after the first time I visited California, the Bay Area, I had always hoped of getting channel 2, 4, or 5 from there back in New Jersey but at the time, I didn't really know the limit in distance for a single skip and I wondered why I never got anything from the western part of the country. Obviously, I never got a double hop e skip, at least anything I could identify though I do remember some times where a station would come in very scrambled and unsteady, not good enough to be able to tell where it was from.

It would be so cool to get a cross country FM station though.

Anyone ever gotten that?
 
The bad news: Digital TV conversion means no more cross-country reception on Channels 2-6.

The good news: Digital TV conversion means Cuba, Mexico, etc., should be very easy catches this year.

Has Canada migrated to DTV yet?
 
The farthest FM station I got was KNNK 100.5 in Dimmitt, TX about 1400 miles away here in VA severals years ago and KNNK is not too far from the vertical TX/NM border. The station operates at 43000W.
 
@MN Maniac----I just caught a few Canadians the other day on analog. I believe that their switchover month is Aug 2011.

cd
 
gar fla said:
It would be so cool to get a cross country FM station though.

Anyone ever gotten that?
Click to expand...

Cross country 2x Es does happen, but is not very common. One of the better examples of such reception is from a WTFDA member in Oregon, who has reported 2000+ mile Es a few times, including WKYS in Washington, DC. Thread with recordings is here: http://www.wtfda.info/showthread.php?t=682&highlight=double

One of the more impressive multi-hop FM reports came this summer from Paul Logan in Ireland (a very credible DX'er), who heard FM stations from New England, as well as a confirmed reception of a station in Alabama: http://www.wtfda.info/showthread.php?t=3259
 
Had Es on the evening of May 4th. I got 91.5 KJZZ Phoenix, 96.9 KMXP Phoenix, 89.9 KUNM-NM, 89.9 KZAI Superior, AZ and 88.7 KNAU Flagstaff, AZ into Bothell, WA. All new logs.

Nothing noted between May 5th and today. Come on, Es!!

-crainbebo
 
KG6VSW said:
gar fla said:
It would be so cool to get a cross country FM station though.

Anyone ever gotten that?
Click to expand...

Cross country 2x Es does happen, but is not very common. One of the better examples of such reception is from a WTFDA member in Oregon, who has reported 2000+ mile Es a few times, including WKYS in Washington, DC. Thread with recordings is here: http://www.wtfda.info/showthread.php?t=682&highlight=double

One of the more impressive multi-hop FM reports came this summer from Paul Logan in Ireland (a very credible DX'er), who heard FM stations from New England, as well as a confirmed reception of a station in Alabama: http://www.wtfda.info/showthread.php?t=3259
Click to expand...

Holy cow! He is sure is lucky to get double hop Es! Especially one of the stations in my listening area. The double hop Es is something I have never been able to get. I was in Oregon 3 years ago and I have not received any E skip there.
 
Unlike with tropo where the signal is steady, a station being received by E skip rapidly fades in and out.

In a matter of a few seconds, it can go from sounding like a local to nothing but static and then it comes right back strong as can be.

Another thing that makes it easy to identify is how many times, there is more than one station doing this on the same frequency. A station from one distant city will be there and seconds later, another one works it's way in.

Too bad you never got to experience this on the old analog TV without cable.
 
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