Great Tropo Mid-Atlantic this weekend

[dx1ng]

Last night, there was great tropo from the Poughkeepsie, NY area down through North Carolina. I concentrate on DTV now, and Friday evening logged WRIC-8 from Petersburg, VA at 355 miles.

I got up at 3:45 Saturday morning, and managed to snag 5 more new DTV loggings... including 3 from the Washington, DC area, WUSA-9 (best reception of all the new loggings), WFDC-14, and WDCW-50 "CW50". Also WMAR-2 Baltimore, MD (now actually on channel 38... I had logged WMAR before during the DTV transition on channel 52).

Best catch of the night was WUNM-19 from Jacksonville, NC, around 4am. They run just a relatively low 100kw, and at 497 miles, they are the 3rd most-distant DTV station I've received here in Poughkeepsie in a year or so of DTV DX.

Throughout Friday evening I had the FM radio tuned to "Gospel-100.9" from Eastern North Carolina. They were in continually, with a lot of static early on (around 7pm) and gradually increasing to a very nice signal after 10pm or so. Tonight, Sarturday, "Gospel-100.9" is in again, so this might signal another great night of tropo. If DTV is good, FM should be even better!!!

 

[ddsparxx]

Throughout Friday evening I had the FM radio tuned to "Gospel-100.9" from Eastern North Carolina. They were in continually, with a lot of static early on (around 7pm) and gradually increasing to a very nice signal after 10pm or so. Tonight, Sarturday, "Gospel-100.9" is in again, so this might signal another great night of tropo. If DTV is good, FM should be even better!!!

I have heard WFMI 100.9 Southern Shores, NC (Outer Banks area) along with WKJX 96.7 Elizebeth City, NC, last night in northern VA. The High pressure along the Atlantic coast appears to be bringing in the tropo.

 

[awsherrill]

Does anyone know how far up in frequency the tropo is effective? I know it's great for FM and some TV reception, so perhaps it's good out to around 700 MHz at least, maybe higher.

I have a couple of stations with 950 MHz studio-to-transmitter links that are getting hammered by what I'm guessing is tropo interference from another market. Not much fun when your station depends on these frequencies to stay on the air.

 

[DeadElvis]

Tropo doesn't have an MUF per se. So, theoretically, the tropo may be usable well into the microwave spectrum.

Some hams enjoy dabbling with those frequencies. There are several guys active on 1.2 GHz since there is some commercial gear available. Others who are builders work as high as 5 GHz (or even higher). Things get weird up there, but the troposphere will bend it.

Just because lower frequencies are usable, it does not mean the microwave frequencies are; shape and geometry of ducts is an issue. But that's a bit esoteric for this discussion.

DE

 

[w9wi]

Does anyone know how far up in frequency the tropo is effective? I know it's great for FM and some TV reception, so perhaps it's good out to around 700 MHz at least, maybe higher.

I have a couple of stations with 950 MHz studio-to-transmitter links that are getting hammered by what I'm guessing is tropo interference from another market. Not much fun when your station depends on these frequencies to stay on the air.

The famed California-to-Hawaii tropo duct has been worked as high as 5.6GHz. I think you can reasonably assume it's possible higher.

Indeed, arguably a mirage is a tropo refraction at light frequencies, far higher than any at which radio signals happen.