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E Skip season is here

Thanks for the Tip

What is it called when 2 stations is on the same frequency??

I'm hearing 106.9 KCBS & 106.9 KRNO one's coming in & ones fading out in West Sac..I also hear KXFX & KKIQ on 101.7 back home in Vallejo..it's not a e-skip
 
It's called co-channel interference.

It sounds like you are at the right distance with the frequency you hear this where no one station is close enough to dominate the frequency but the frequency in that region has more than one station close enough for you to hear at the same time.

It's probably a slow fade in and out unlike E skip and probably moving the antenna or the radio from one position to another makes a noticable difference on which station is strongest. That's not the case with E skip because what makes one station favor another is happening because of changes in the E cloud.
 
MarioMania said:
Thanks for the Tip

What is it called when 2 stations is on the same frequency??

I'm hearing 106.9 KCBS & 106.9 KRNO one's coming in & ones fading out in West Sac..I also hear KXFX & KKIQ on 101.7 back home in Vallejo..it's not a e-skip
Click to expand...

You're definitely getting some tropospheric ducting in order to pull in KRNO from West Sacramento. Normally, the Sierras would preclude their signal from making it that far west. However, with some atmospheric assistance, it was bouncing over the mountains - enabling you to hear it from West Sacto. Pretty good catch.
 
Even if it raining..I'm still getting KRNO in..But I can't get KFRC/KCBS 106.9 any more

Some spots at the house I could get KISQ 98.1
 
Anything over 650 miles away is 80-100% E-skip. It's impossible to get E-skip from a station 100 miles away. That's tropo conditions. Just letting you know. Good luck in Sacramento!

-crainbebo
 
gar fla said:
It's impossible to get E-skip from a station 100 miles away.
Click to expand...

That's correct.


Anything over 650 miles away is 80-100% E-skip.
Click to expand...


Not necessarily. Tropo can go much more than that.

Earlier this spring, I got tropo from more than 900 miles away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkRK9nP1Li8


Like I explained to Mario earlier, E skip can easily be identified by the way it rapidly fades in and out.
Click to expand...

In January 1977 I heard 96.3 FM from Miami, Fl in Chicago. (the calls then were WMJX). The station came in for at least 4--5 hours with little fading & this was in January! That's over 1,100 miles. Would that have been e skip? I find it hard to believe it was tropo.
One thing for sure it was very rare and I've never heard anything like it since during the winter.
 
If you heard one station with little or no fading, it had to be tropo.

I used to also think tropo was limited to a few hundred miles or so but if you look it up and read the research, it can go even over 2000 miles, such as between Hawaii and the west coast.

While the ocean makes for more common weather conditions that support good tropo, it's hardly limited to the oceans.

If you were getting E skip from Miami, it certainly should have had rapid fading in and out and certainly never lasted as long as it did.
 
E-skip openings can indeed be that long-lived. Back in the analog TV days, it was not at all uncommon to see stations such as WPBT 2 Miami, WESH 2 Daytona Beach and WEDU 3 Tampa staying in (with some fading) for hours at a time here in upstate NY. And yes, a January e-skip opening is possible.
 
I've seen long lasting E skip openings from the same places in New jersey too in the summer on old analog TV for maybe an hour or two but with definite fading during that time period.

While December is an off season opening for E skip, I think it would really be pushing it to say it lasted so long and that intense.

Here's more info on tropo and all it's possibilities.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_propagation
 
Another thing that just hit me is that January of 1977 was one of the worst winters ever on record, not only with cold but with snow.

The high pressure over the eastern part of the country along with a lot of snow cover between Chicago and Miami could have played a role in creating weather conditions perfect for good tropo on certain days.

It even snowed enough to cover the ground here in Tampa in January of 77. I was still in New Jersey then but I wish I could have seen that historic event.

http://weather-warehouse.com/grenci/PetPeevesandRearEndCollisions.html
 
BRNout said:
MarioMania said:
Thanks for the Tip

What is it called when 2 stations is on the same frequency??

I'm hearing 106.9 KCBS & 106.9 KRNO one's coming in & ones fading out in West Sac..I also hear KXFX & KKIQ on 101.7 back home in Vallejo..it's not a e-skip
Click to expand...

You're definitely getting some tropospheric ducting in order to pull in KRNO from West Sacramento. Normally, the Sierras would preclude their signal from making it that far west. However, with some atmospheric assistance, it was bouncing over the mountains - enabling you to hear it from West Sacto. Pretty good catch.
Click to expand...

Wow, Cool..Now you said that, CHR station on 102.9, I looked it up on w9wi.com..it's KWYL in South Lake Tahoe, CA
 
Regarding the Miami to Chicago 96.3 - it is HIGHLY unlikely that this was tropospheric propagation of some sort. Long haul tropo is very rare as far north as Chicago, and virtually unheard of in January (particularly considering the cold winter claim). 1000+ mile tropo in North America almost always occurs along the Gulf Coast, and occasionally along the Atlantic coast. If it would have been tropo, the signal would have been very weak in all likelihood.

On the other hand, the prime range for Es is roughly 800-1200 miles (Chicago to Miami is just under 1200). January is also a very distinct off-season peak for Sporadic Es. While Es often exhibits deep fading, it is common for a very strong Es opening to exhibit only minor fading with fairly steady signals. What you describe would still be pretty rare for Sporadic Es, but far, far more likely than tropo.

Regarding receiver quality and Es - even low quality radios can receive the strongest of Sporadic Es signals, but I wouldn't want to waste my time. OEM car radios are the best bet for new DXers without equipment at home. If you want to DX at home, don't mess around with cheap portables and such... just shell out $75 for a Sony XDR-F1HD and string the included dipole in your window if you don't have an outdoor antenna. Run the audio into your computer (with a cheap RCA to headphone cable) or to amplified computer speakers (also cheap for a basic pair). There are other good tuners out there as well, depending on your budget... but the Sony is the "latest and greatest".

For general E-Skip information, read Girard Westerberg's in-depth propagation article (http://www.dxfm.com/ - click "Signal Propagation").
 
It's time to let the static grip my ears. :D

Being in the center of the country, we can log e-skip from coast to coast. In the analog TV days, the most common targets were various channel 2s in Mexico and WEDU-3 in Tampa. Mexico would usually pop in during the morning, then switch to either southwest or southeast by midday. Then things would die down in the early afternoon. If e-skip reignited in the late afternoon, it was usually from the east/northeast/southeast. Rarely have I logged e-skip late at night.

I haven't done much the last two years because I just didn't have the time. That, and the amount of rimshots and translators filling in the gaps on the FM dial makes it hard to discern long-distance stations.
 
While Es often exhibits deep fading, it is common for a very strong Es opening to exhibit only minor fading with fairly steady signals.
Click to expand...


If it's indeed true that a strong Es opening can be steady, then that's what it was.

I've never come across any reference for Sporadic E that mentions the signal can be steady. They all say the signals are not steady. I've never experienced any Es with a steady signal myself.

Also, I've been checking the Es real time map that I found and posted on page 1 of this thread quite often and I've yet to see any of the numbers on the map indicate Es into the frequencies of the FM band but there's obviously been FM Es happening in parts of the country as reported here.


I've checked my radio too on empty frequencies at the lower FM band and so far nothing. :-[
 
If there's e-skip, it affects half the country and you'll see a lot of reports here. If it's tropo, it doesn't affect as wide an area.
 
If I might offer a suggestion, gar fla, may I recommend the Worldwide TV FM DX Association as a useful resource? It's a good group of people who put out an excellent monthly magazine ("VHF/UHF Digest") and have an active website and a mailing list that's the first line of alert whenever there's E-skip or trop afoot. I know there are some other WTFDA members here on this board - and over on the mailing list and forums, there's literally decades of DX experience there for the taking.

The club's website is at http://wtfda.org.

(We also have an annual convention, lately in conjunction with the National Radio Club; this year, it's being held here in Rochester NY in late August.)
 
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