High Altitude FM DX at 22,000FT

[dxer2_2000]

Hi allYesterday (June 8 2006 at around 11am AEST) I was once again allowed to do FM DX on a private plane. Equipment used was:Teac T-515 AM/FM tuner running off 6 AA cellsT shaped ribbon antenna, stuck across 3 or 4 windowsSanyo boombox tape recorderThe FM band at 22,000FT was jammed pack with signals & stations fighting stations on the same Frequency. Like getting super tropo! Again the signals under 400km were stable as & thoselocated 500km away showed slow gentle fading. The tuner had some trouble seperating stations onadjacent freqiencies (selectivity).Here is what I recorded onto cassette.Wollongong NSW at LOCAL levels. 95.7 ABC Classic FM & 96.5 Wave-FM. Both stereo.Canberra FMs also at HUGE levels.89.5 ABC Classic FM Golburn (low powered translator)96.1 The Edge Katoomba heard clearly until shepparton took over that Freq. Sheppartonheard in stereo (ABC Classic FM).94.3 3SEA "Star-FM" Warragul 92.9 ABC Classic FM (stereo) fighting with Snow-FM/t located at Thredbo NSW102.7 ABC Classic FM Orange heard nicely in stereo99.7 fight between Griffith NSW (Star-FM) & ABC Regional located at Omeo Vic.97.9 ABC Regional Tumut NSW (low powered) - new logging99.9 TAB Parkes NSW91.3 3SR/t Mt Buller (relay of 95.3 3SR Shepparton) - new logging95.3 3SR Shepparton - in stereo above 10,000FT91.5 Vega 915 Melbourne. Weak but nice ID for "Vega 91.5".105.9 2GZF Orange. Nice w/ "Star-FM" ID.Overall, it was nice to get some more high altitude DX & I did better onthis occasion by hearing Sydney & Melbourne at 500km distance. Makes winter-time on FM more interesting!I couldn't possibly log all stations heard.dxer2_2000

 

[4dude]

I can imagine @ that high up,the conditions would be SUPERB (Even with no skip)

 

[dxer2_2000]

Yeah Makes you wish you could have your FM Yagi at 20,000+ feet up!Remember too, the aircraft fuselage has huge attenuation, so outside the FM signals would be at INCREDIBLE strength!dxer2_2000

 

[KML0224]

Seeing as how you'll be going into winter soon, how does Austrailian DX fare down there at ground level?

 

[dxer2_2000]

Seeing as how you'll be going into winter soon, how does Austrailian DX fare down there at ground level?

Well, generally, Winter time = NO DXdaily tropospheric scatter is at very low levels in winter. There is however, some small Es at Band 1 (generally 45.25Mhz TV carrier from NZ).