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E Skip season is here

Nick said:
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.
Click to expand...

I am not sure that I agree with that statement.

I have seen many, many Es openings with very narrow footprints, often allowing maybe just one station in at a time. In fact, in the days I was DXing TV, my longest Es was Southern Mississippi to San Francisco. That event was odd -- it was JUST KTVU, all by itself on channel 2. No Denver, no North Platte, no Vermillion, SD, or any of the other stations between it and me one might expect.

Conversely, I have witnessed tropo openings that were long-lasting and covered a huge amount of real estate. April, 2006 comes to mind. In that four-day opening, tropo was saturating from deep into Texas, across the Gulf, reaching into the Cumberland Plateau and going as far east as South Florida and Georgia. And, it was really, really intense. TV and FM radio stations were having interference in their local coverage areas all across the region.

Ultimately, once you have seen a few openings, you'll have NO trouble discerning between Es and tropo.

DE
 
I second Scott's suggestion. If you are interested in the TV/FM DXing hobby, WTFDA is an invaluable resource, certainly worth the very meager membership fee. You don't even have to be a member to access the forums (http://wtfda.info/).

gar fla - the DX Sherlock map you are referring to is an adequate indicator for 50 MHz Es, but I would advise only using it as a general indicator. I simply look at the raw 50 MHz paths (MUF map is even less reliable) for a basic idea of where Es paths might be active. There is NO substitute for simply parking your tuner on a frequency that is as clear as possible and have that audio in the background when you are home. In Florida, a good portion of your Es range still has analog TV... you can monitor Ch 2-6 for Es as well, they generally precede 88-108 Es.

However, if you must rely on the internet, the WTFDA e-mail list and similar sources where actual FM DX is reported generally reflect reality more accurately.

Once you become sufficiently familiar with your band, you will get to know how your tropo pests and locals/semi-locals sound, between their format, slogans, and audio quality. You will also develop an ear for how different modes of propagation sounds.

Here's an example of a moderately strong Es signal - 98.3 KATR in Colorado from my QTH in Tennessee, recorded last summer. You can hear the brief fades that are characteristic of Es, but they aren't very significant. This was using a Sangean HDT-1X tuner with a simple dipole in my window. http://www.kg6vsw.com/audio/983KATR_match.mp3
 
I also highly doubt Miami reception in Chicago was tropo, skip (even in January) is so much more likely. However, you can't assume either type of propagation just based on the two cities involved. You have to take into consideration what else was coming in and what wasn't coming in, as well as how it sounds. The Gulf coast area arguably has the best tropo in the US (most frequent, most intense, longest-distance). It's not like that elsewhere.

My longest FM tropo here in Poughkeepsie, NY is from Grand Rapids, MI (609 miles). I also have several skip, loggings from Michigan, one as close as 567 miles (WCMU-89.5), and a Meteor Scatter from Michigan too at 550 miles (WMMQ-94.9). The more experience you get, the easier it is to recognize what mode you're getting. By the way, my most-distant DTV logging is also from Michigan, WLAJ-53 Lansing, at 547 miles, and that occured in what night be considered the tropo "off-season", January 17, 2010. By the way, you'll never get skip at UHF frequencies.

On June 27, 2008 I was picking up Halifax, NS on FM, and was really confused at first as to whether it was tropo or skip. I thought it might be tropo, as Boston was coming in pretty well on tropo in the same general direction (and causing a lot of interference), but these Halifax stations, as well as Sydney, NS and PEI were all skip. Halifax has the interesting distinction as being the only city I've received some FM stations via skip, and some via tropo. It's 551 miles.

E-skip can fade very rapidly, as has been stated, going from solid to zero in less than a second. But especially when the skip is strong, fading can be a lot less dramatic. Tropo signals fade in and out, but for the most part, much more slowly.

It's been very quiet here in the past week on both the tropo and e-skip fronts. Some nice skip out west and southwest recently. Tropo conditions have been dead here too. However, it looks like a lot of the Gulf Coast, especially the Western Gulf, might be in for some nice tropo the rest of this week.

Good DX to all!
 
dx1ng said:
I also highly doubt Miami reception in Chicago was tropo, skip (even in January) is so much more likely. However, you can't assume either type of propagation just based on the two cities involved. You have to take into consideration what else was coming in and what wasn't coming in, as well as how it sounds. The Gulf coast area arguably has the best tropo in the US (most frequent, most intense, longest-distance). It's not like that elsewhere.

My longest FM tropo here in Poughkeepsie, NY is from Grand Rapids, MI (609 miles). I also have several skip, loggings from Michigan, one as close as 567 miles (WCMU-89.5), and a Meteor Scatter from Michigan too at 550 miles (WMMQ-94.9). The more experience you get, the easier it is to recognize what mode you're getting. By the way, my most-distant DTV logging is also from Michigan, WLAJ-53 Lansing, at 547 miles, and that occured in what night be considered the tropo "off-season", January 17, 2010. By the way, you'll never get skip at UHF frequencies.

On June 27, 2008 I was picking up Halifax, NS on FM, and was really confused at first as to whether it was tropo or skip. I thought it might be tropo, as Boston was coming in pretty well on tropo in the same general direction (and causing a lot of interference), but these Halifax stations, as well as Sydney, NS and PEI were all skip. Halifax has the interesting distinction as being the only city I've received some FM stations via skip, and some via tropo. It's 551 miles.

E-skip can fade very rapidly, as has been stated, going from solid to zero in less than a second. But especially when the skip is strong, fading can be a lot less dramatic. Tropo signals fade in and out, but for the most part, much more slowly.

It's been very quiet here in the past week on both the tropo and e-skip fronts. Some nice skip out west and southwest recently. Tropo conditions have been dead here too. However, it looks like a lot of the Gulf Coast, especially the Western Gulf, might be in for some nice tropo the rest of this week.

Good DX to all!
Click to expand...

I always assumed that the Miami/Chicago in January was e skip. That was the only distant station I picked up that day although that doesn't mean others weren't there. I remember calling the engineer in Miami & he said they had been heard the week before in Montreal. So strange things were happening that January.
 
I thought I finally had my first E catch of the season but it turned out not to be. I always tune to an empty frequency at the lower end of the band and I had it on 92.9.

It was a country station coming in with the same characteristic fade as E skip called Kix Country. I looked it up online and it's only from Ft. Myers.

I wonder why it had the kind of fading it did for that distance.
 
gar fla said:
I thought I finally had my first E catch of the season but it turned out not to be. I always tune to an empty frequency at the lower end of the band and I had it on 92.9.

It was a country station coming in with the same characteristic fade as E skip called Kix Country. I looked it up online and it's only from Ft. Myers.

I wonder why it had the kind of fading it did for that distance.
Click to expand...

What you picked up was WIKX out of Punta Gorda which is just north for Ft Myers. It is a 100,000 watt station so it is not our of the question that you should be able to pick it up.
 
What I meant by e-skip affecting a large area is that one e-skip cloud over Tennessee can produce e-skip reports from DXers all over the eastern half of the country.

A tropo duct between Long Island and Norfolk would only produce tropo reports within the duct.
 
Mario,

In the case of E-skip, weather (even rain) is not a factor. Tropospheric DX, well, that's another story. Hot & dry with high pressure makes Tropo DX great.

cd
 
My first E-skip was on May 23 when Guatemala's El Super Canal came in on A3. And picked up today a spanish 97.7 that was fading in and out pretty good.
 
Your TV3 is TGV out of Guatemala City.

On Sunday, I got just a LITTLE Es. I picked up the following stations.

89.9: KUNM Albuquerque, NM, 1189 miles, relog
89.9: KZAI Superior, AZ, 1125 miles, relog

Also had a 91.5 w/ christian music, no ID. Probably the 91.5 out of the same area as 89.9, forgot the call.

-crainbebo
 
Does it matter if I live in a Area that's it hard getting an Analog Signal??

Radio is fine for me, if I put up the Antanna, But TV is Bad

I can't really explain it to well..
 
If you are in the Bay Area, the only analog E-skip you are likely to hear is from Canada & Mexico. And, it doesn't happen every day. In fact, I haven't received any decent E-skip for a few days, and I'm in a good spot (Florida). Just keep checking channels 2 to 6. It always begins at 2 and if it is good it will work its way up.

Go to www.wtfda.info and see "Got Analog TV DX?" column....you will see some photos of recent catches.

Keep in mind that E-skip average distance is 1000 miles. Anything less than 500 is very rare. Get a map and measure from your location and see what areas in Canada & Mexico are prime for it.

cd
 
Canada should be good for you MarioMania, it's about 700 miles to Vancouver, BC and 1200 miles to Saskatchewan.

-crainbebo
 
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