• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

E Skip season is here

Looking at RL, the Syracuse 89.1 appears to be the only 89.1 that would be Top 40, but I think the 89.1 being heard is more likely to be somewhere closer to CA, but I don't know where. The chance that someome on the West Coast to hear an FM station near the East Coast would be very, very, very, very slim.
 
Lest we forget, there is 89.1 ZBM in Bermuda, a fairly common catch. They play A/C though, off the bird ( www.hitsandfavorites.com ), last I caught it with music.

They are adding hours as talk shows now, I was told.

cd
 
travisl5678 said:
I just picked up an E-skip couldn't ID it, it was a CHR on 89.1. I heard it play David Guetta "Sexy Chick" followed by Lady Gaga "Bad Rommance"with no ID or sweeper.During Lady Gaga it suddenly faded out.An RL search suggested it could be a translattor in Texas.Can Someone help?
Click to expand...

Could it have been a nearby FM modulator? I figure it sounded unprocessed and the songs weren't blended together, it could have just been someone's mp3 player. I've been fooled by that a few times just in my small town. Someone loves broadcasting one of the Sirius sports channels in the mornings.
 
I dunno the whole situation, but another theory....

Often a translator, which is rebroadcasting a station on another frequency, has the main station overridden by DX.

Case in point: I was listening to what was supposed to be a WLRN translator on 89.1 in Big Pine Key. Instead, I got CHR WFLZ 93.3.on it! Apparently the 89.1 was relaying another translator on 93.3 in another part of the Keys....but Tropo to the north was so strong that WFLZ Tampa, over 200 miles north, overrode it.

I found out that it is not as unusual or rare as I thought it was. Also it may have been about the 5th time this year that I heard a translator goof (well not really a goof, but overpowering DX) happened.

cd
 
As I understand it the rules for translators are that they are to automatically shut down if they lose the parent station. But it seems like this rule is rarely if ever implemented. Where I live we had a translator that was just dead air for the longest when its parent station fell silent. I guess the receiver "drifted" off 94.5 MHz to 94.4 MHz because it was usually a hash of stations on 94.5 and 94.3. But during good DX conditions the sports station in Birmingham on 94.5 would boom in, especially in mornings.

In what has to be an odd coincidence, the translator at 103.1 MHz has since been taken off the air because of the debut of a full power station at 103.3 MHz in a nearby town. And it carries… the same sports network as 94.5 in Birmingham, lol.
 
It's hard for a translator to know if it's receiving the intended station. It could know if there is a station or no signal on its input frequency, but it can't tell if what it's picking up is the intended station.
 
Nick said:
It's hard for a translator to know if it's receiving the intended station. It could know if there is a station or no signal on its input frequency, but it can't tell if what it's picking up is the intended station.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good use for RDS, then. If the parent station's data drops out or changes to something unexpected, the translator shuts down.
 
Zach said:
Nick said:
It's hard for a translator to know if it's receiving the intended station. It could know if there is a station or no signal on its input frequency, but it can't tell if what it's picking up is the intended station.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good use for RDS, then. If the parent station's data drops out or changes to something unexpected, the translator shuts down.
Click to expand...

One more thing to go wrong & leave the translator off the air when the primary is working.

I'd bet many translator owners would rather risk their translator relaying someone else rather than risk it being off the air.
 
A few years ago, from northern Ohio, I was picking up "Cat Country KATR" on 98.3 FM from Otis, CO. This was around 10pm local time, after dark and the signal sounded as clear as a local or at least a semi-local station with very little fluctuation in the signal strength. I know E-skip is unusual after dark and usually rapidly fades in and out. So what other conditions could permit such long distance reception?
 
Rare to have E-skip after 10pm, but I caught the former analog WKYC-TV 3 in Cleveland from my home near Miami one Saturday night, at the end of Saturday Night Live! (1 am)

This year I got Caracol TV in Colombia (ch 2 or 4...I have seen both) at 10pm on a Sunday night.

Rare but not impossible.

cd
 
Generally, Ohio listeners can't pick up California stations, although it's not impossible. (I received Dayton's channel 2 from California.)
Double-hop e-skip can bring in signals more distant than regular e-skip.
A friend picked up Jacksonville FL from L.A. during an e-skip opening.
Generally, though, the range of e-skip is between 800 and 1500 miles, although I've gotten FM from 500, and TV from California to Miami.
But those situations are exceedingly rare.
Tropo isn't as common on the west coast, and seldom stretches beyond 300 or 400 miles, whereas Texas and Florida can connect via trop if conditions are right.
By the way, e-skip doesn't always fade rapidly. It can, although more often the fade is slow and long. Or a station can stay in for several minutes without fading once.
 
multiplex said:
Generally, Ohio listeners can't pick up California stations, although it's not impossible. (I received Dayton's channel 2 from California.)
Double-hop e-skip can bring in signals more distant than regular e-skip.
A friend picked up Jacksonville FL from L.A. during an e-skip opening.
Generally, though, the range of e-skip is between 800 and 1500 miles, although I've gotten FM from 500, and TV from California to Miami.
But those situations are exceedingly rare.
Tropo isn't as common on the west coast, and seldom stretches beyond 300 or 400 miles, whereas Texas and Florida can connect via trop if conditions are right.
By the way, e-skip doesn't always fade rapidly. It can, although more often the fade is slow and long. Or a station can stay in for several minutes without fading once.
Click to expand...

Years ago I had e-skip from Miami, Fl in Chicago for several hours with a pretty steady signal. I first heard the station in my car while driving home.
When I got home I still had the station on my stereo receiver & recorded it. In addition this was during the winter. Very rare indeed at least for me.
 
multiplex, why don't you post all your FM and TV logs so I could see them. I'm still kinda' a rookie, and seeing logs from a friend from the same area as me makes it interesting to see.

-crainbebo
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom