• 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

Help with Es

E

eskipper411

If a station is fading in and out on Analog, is it Es?
 
eskipper411 said:
If a station is fading in and out on Analog, is it Es?
Click to expand...

as gr8oldies says, not necessarily.

A few characteristics of Es:

- Distance is between 700 and 1,200 miles. (distances as short as 400 miles have happened but less than 700 is quite rare; likewise, distances of as much as 1,500 miles happen but are rare. "multiple-hop" openings of up to 4,000 miles have happened but the vast majority of us will never observe one.)

- ALWAYS starts at lower frequencies and moves up. If there's nothing doing on CB or the 10-meter ham band, but FM is wide open, it's probably NOT Es. Used to be you could use TV as a predictor of Es -- if you had TV DX on channel 2, there was a fair chance something would hit FM in an hour or so. It's a lot harder (but not impossible) to receive digital stations via Es. That said, the analog TV stations are still on the air in Canada, Mexico, and Cuba and can serve as notice of FM Es openings to those countries.

- Yes, there is a *minimum* distance. A station 300 miles away is NOT Es.

- Most likely in mid to late morning (~10-11am) and mid to late afternoon. (3-5pm) Can happen at other times though.

- Most likely in late spring to early summer (May, June, July).

- DEEP and RAPID fading. Signal may be perfect, then over a period of a second or two fade out almost completely (often to be replaced by another DX station), then fade right back in at full force.

A few characteristics of tropo (the other major DX mode):

- No minimum distance, but a considerably shorter maximum. Stations more than 500 miles away are rare, most DXers will never hear anything more than 1000 miles away via tropo. Stations as close as 30 miles may be enhanced.

- Does NOT always start at lower frequencies -- indeed, it often starts at higher frequencies. If you're getting distant digital TV signals on UHF frequencies, FM DX from the same places is probably tropo. UHF TV DX **is** tropo. The highest frequency at which Es has been reported is 225MHz - UHF Es is unheardof.

- Depending on your location, can happen any time of year. (in the North, tropo is VERY rare in winter. In the South, wintertime tropo is quite common. In both regions it happens all summer long, even in late summer after Es has begun to fade.)

- Better at night and, especially, just before and just after sunrise.
 
I was hearing audio on 3 and 6 but no video with weird squeals on 3 that sound like a magnetic storm.
 
Another sign of an e-skip is when local FM stations are riddled with interference, or have to seemingly fight with another station on the same frequency.
 
ScottBurns said:
Another sign of an e-skip is when local FM stations are riddled with interference, or have to seemingly fight with another station on the same frequency.
Click to expand...

That often does signify Es, but it can also happen in intense tropo events.
 
Yes, FM stations can get interference problems. But when the MUF is real high, locals are chewed up by E-skip. On July 6th, 2004, a huge Es opening with MUF 216 mHz happened. A video on YouTube shows WLOX TV13 Blioxi, MS via Es in Upstate NY, which happens only around twice in a lifetime. (Not now because US is off!)

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


Back
Top Bottom