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FM Stations Picked up WAY out of their Fringe

SportscasterJohn said:
re: 106.9 The Ranch out of Kerens (Corsicana). I used to be able to pick them up in Richardson, and even was able to use a small monitor when we did a game at Hanby Stadium in Mesquite. That went away when someone at the FCC allowed a translator to come on in Royse City rebroadcasting an LPFM out of Greenville. The Royse City translator is supposedly only 1kW, but it blows KRVF (The Ranch) away, almost to Palmer. In fact, when KRVF moved to 106.9, you could hear the station loud and clear in Royse City. Definite ball drop there.

When I was engineering in Brownwood (KXYL-FM... then it was 104.1), I had to go to San Angelo, and lost the station about 20 miles down the road. It was immediately replaced by a station out of Canada. I think Manitoba, but can't remember, or find the call letters anywhere.

J
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Ahhh Class D FM translators are limited to 250w ERP MAX...There is no way they can be licensed for 1KW!!!!
 
I remember back in 2004 I cuaght several St Louis stations from Dallas Texas also that same morning I was picking up several TV stations. I was trrying to watch KDFW's Good Day Dallas and was fighting between the station out of Oklahoma City and then the WOAI out of San Antonio. My best ever catches were back in 2005 I was on the trail one day and some one was asking me what station I was listening to and I told them that it was 93.7 KLBJ and they were really shocked. That same day I picked up stations out of Lubbock Abilene, Midland, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and many more
 
This all reminds me of the TV set up my parents had back in the late 60s at their home just north of Mansfield. At that time the Cowboy games would be blacked out locally if they weren't sold out 72 hours before kickoff. My dad put up a big antenna facing south so that we could pick up the signal from channel 10 out of Waco. The apparatus was even called a "Cowboy Antenna" at the time. We'd have uncles and cousins and relatives packed into the living room like sardines. At times the picture on their 19" screen was so snowy that you could barely tell what was going on . . . even after one of us got up on the roof and twisted the pole until someone inside shouted that the picture was better . . . but we were getting to watch the game!
 
SportscasterJohn said:
re: 106.9 The Ranch out of Kerens (Corsicana). I used to be able to pick them up in Richardson, and even was able to use a small monitor when we did a game at Hanby Stadium in Mesquite. That went away when someone at the FCC allowed a translator to come on in Royse City rebroadcasting an LPFM out of Greenville.
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You're right John, that translator really does get out. The transmitter is just northeast of Royse City but it's actually licensed to Greenville with 250 watts at just over 150 feet: www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=FX1157128.html
 
jd said:
You're right John, that translator really does get out. The transmitter is just northeast of Royse City but it's actually licensed to Greenville with 250 watts at just over 150 feet: www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=FX1157128.html
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That translator was off the air one afternoon during a rainstorm and I had a mixture of the Ranch and The Point from Houston in Plano. The Ranch was really weak.
 
TheRover said:
When I had a south facing bedroom, on the second floor, in central Irving in the 1990's, I was able to get KBLJ-FM (Austin) at night with the trusty, tried and true DX-440.

The 4 1/2 foot telescoping antenna helped. 8)
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Before that garbage came on 93.7, KLBJ was a regular catch up here.
 
Some of my best FM catches or valid reception reports:

A call from someone parked underneath an overpass in Toronto listening to our station in Austin, TX.
Picked up 3WS or V in Pittsburg, PA...while having the KDGE tower in my sights.
Picked up KDGE in Tulsa in 1995
Picked up Maine and Boston stations in the Atlanta area.
Picked up Tulsa in Florida just last Summer

FM skip isn't RARE, it's just unusual. But fun!
 
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