K31GL APPLIES FOR RF-33

[JHBrandt]

Where I live, K31GL has been a solid but since July, they are gone. Now I only receive them via Tropo.

You know, it's the darndest thing: something like this happens, I complain on this board, and the next time I check, shazam! It's fixed! K31GL was barely receivable for three solid days and now today, it's fine. Do the station engineers read this forum?

Now channel 50 is gone! But now that I've mentioned it here, it'll undoubtedly be back tomorrow.

I noticed that 50 up and disappeared on me too. I've had NO trouble getting it before. Are they off the air for some reason?

It's back, but I'm glad to learn I wasn't the only one having trouble. They must've had a technical problem for a couple of days.

 

[JHBrandt]

It was "fading"

I Get 31 Pretty good Up here in McKinney

To get to the bottom of things I kept the signal strength meter on for half an hour or so Tuesday evening. I expected it to crash suddenly at some point. Instead, it just started dropping gradually until it was starting to pixellate, then it started edging back up again until it was OK, at which point the whole cycle began again.

Obviously that's not the station's doing. It's a frustrating phenomenon related to multipath called "fading." The signal arrives at the antenna via multiple paths, but not from directions different enough for the antenna to reject one. As the relative strength and/or phase of the signals changes, the received signal fades in and out (hence the name).

There's no sure cure for fading, but moving or rotating the antenna can sometimes help. I spent the evening raising the antenna up about a foot, which seems to have helped - afterwards, K31GL has been solid (so far).

 

[Herve]

50 probably could'nt afford the cost of keeping up a transmitter.

What does that mean? They seem to have stations in many many markets.