Just What Cape Cod Needs: Another FM Station

[raccoonradio]

For those wondering about stations from the Cape, etc. coming in and pretty well this time of year from a great distance:

http://www.dxing.com/tvfmdx.htm
>>Sporadic-E propagation is caused by patches of intense ionization in the E-layer of the ionosphere..sporadic-E is most common from about mid-May to late July, with another peak a week before and after the winter solstice. Sporadic-E seems to be most common from about mid-morning to noon, local time, and again from late afternoon through the evening hours.

I was visiting a friend in Ohio once around the summer solstice and he was getting stations from New Orleans, etc.
What I have picked up, mostly here on the North Shore, over the years:

--CBC stations on FM--LATE AFTERNOON

--Whad Ya Know (public radio) on stations from Carbondale, IL and North Carolina--LATE MORNING

--At the time when WMWM wasn't full time on air, once I was in a Salem State parking lot,
just about to go in and turn us on at noon. Picked up a 91.7 from...Pensacola, FL--LATE
MORNING (WEGS, though at the time I think it was WPCC "Pensacola Christian College")

--News/talk 96.5 (WWDB?) Philadelphia, picked up in Lynn--LATE MORNING

--Driving home from work on 128 in Reading, etc.: WHUS 91.7 Storrs CT; 101.3 from Maine;
good recep of Cape Cod, RI, CT, ME stations. In this case, after midnight

--Places like Lynn Shore Dr.: many FM Cape Cod stations coming in well (94.3, 96.3, 99.9,
103.9, 106.1). The strength of the FM tuner in my portable HD radio is a factor, but I've
picked up WEII 96.3 from the Cape here in Beverly on it.

 

[4CX1000A]

I think tropospheric ducting rather than sporadic-E is the most likely reason people are hearing coastal New England FM stations at unusual distances.

If we started hearing Phoenix or Albuquerque stations, I's suspect sporadic-E.

 

[raccoonradio]

Oh OK; actually when I did a search just now I typed in tropo ducting and got a bunch of pages with terms like that or "sporadic E"--you're right tropo ducting probably is the case.
Many of these pages also had info on distant TV reception. I'm not sure if people get that in the digital TV age.

Years ago in Nahant I would pick up Channel 2s from Indianapolis; FL, etc. On a portable
TV, some UHFs from NYC, CT; VHFs from ME (`6, 8, 13; admittedly perhaps coming in across
the water but it could have been dependent on weather)

And then there's unusual AM recep. During blizzard of 78: WBAP 820 from TX. On occasion,
WWL 870 out of New Orleans.

 

[DanStrassberg]

Oh OK; actually when I did a search just now I typed in tropo ducting and got a bunch of pages with terms like that or "sporadic E"--you're right tropo ducting probably is the case. Many of these pages also had info on distant TV reception. I'm not sure if people get that in the digital TV age.

Somebody else is going to have to answer whether trops (tropospheric ducting) is known to affect UHF signals. AFAIK, the most usual occurrences of trops are in the low VHF channels and the adjacent FM band. With a few notable exceptions (Channel 6 in Philadelphia and Schenectady being two), nearly all US TV since the change-over to digital TV has been UHF. Also, even if you tried to enter the channel numbers, if your DTV receiver didn't catch channels that aren't used in this area when you originally conducted a channel-scan during setup (since trops are seasonal and relatively rare, it is unlikely that the receiver would have caught such channels at that time), it would not stop at those channels if you were later casually flipping through the channels when trops might have made them visible. Remember that the channel numbers by which we know the various TV stations are not the _real_ RF channel numbers, but fictional numbers that are usually the stations' pre-DTV RF channels.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Somebody else is going to have to answer whether trops (tropospheric ducting) is known to affect UHF signals.

It definitely can. On certain "troppo" nights on my DTV here in Somerville with an indoor antenna I occasionally get UHF channels that I don't normally get every day. These have included "Ch. 6" New Bedford/Providence (actual channel 49), "Ch. 10" Providence (actual channel 51), and "Ch. 58" on Cape Cod (actual channel 40). Also, "Ch. 28" Providence (actual channel 22), the only RI market station that I get as an everyday regular for some reason, may come in with twice as many "bars" as usual.

Back in the analog TV days, I used to occasionally see UHF stations from western MA, CT, NYC, NJ and as far as Philly on some "troppo" nights. I haven't seen anything from these distances since the DTV switch.