What is everyone's most memorable E skip. For me it was June 30th 2007. Amazing Amazing day. The skip started at 11 A.M. and it lasted tell 7:30 or 8 that evening Eastern time here in the U.P. of Michigan. I was getting all Louisiana stations as the day started out and some Florida stations were mixing in. As the day wore on it shifted to Texas and I was getting all Dallas and Houston stations. Then it shifted to New Mexico. The last hour of the skip was like the grand finale for fireworks as I was getting stations from all over including Kentucky which I never heard up here. Another Memorable one was July 31st, 2006 I was getting all Montana stations that lasted for a solid 2 hours. I remember on both those days that I mentioned the weather was hot and humid. June 30th 2007 it was around 90 degrees and July 31st 2006 was in the Mid 90's with high humidity.
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Most Memorable E skip
- Thread starter michigandxer
- Start date
My most memorable E skip was the very first time I heard it, because at the time I didn't know that skip was possible on FM and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. What makes the story even stranger was that it was in January.
I was driving home from work in Chicago on a January afternoon in 1977. I turned on WBBM-FM 96.3, but found instead WMJX Miami, Fl.
Since I had no idea at the time that long distance skip on FM was even possible I was flabbergasted.
When I got home, I turned on my FM tuner and was still hearing Miami with a pretty strong signal without much fading. I called the station in Miami and spoke to the chief engineer who tried to explain the E-skip phenomenon to me. He said the day before he got a call from Montreal.
I had experienced tropo and knew about that, but never that kind of FM skip. BTW, the entire event lasted about 4 hours after I started listening. Who knows how long it may have been happening before I discovered it.
It kind of breaks many of the rules about E-Skip that I've read about. Not much fading, long period of time & during the dead of winter.
I think I still have a short recording of this event from 36 years ago.
I was driving home from work in Chicago on a January afternoon in 1977. I turned on WBBM-FM 96.3, but found instead WMJX Miami, Fl.
Since I had no idea at the time that long distance skip on FM was even possible I was flabbergasted.
When I got home, I turned on my FM tuner and was still hearing Miami with a pretty strong signal without much fading. I called the station in Miami and spoke to the chief engineer who tried to explain the E-skip phenomenon to me. He said the day before he got a call from Montreal.
I had experienced tropo and knew about that, but never that kind of FM skip. BTW, the entire event lasted about 4 hours after I started listening. Who knows how long it may have been happening before I discovered it.
It kind of breaks many of the rules about E-Skip that I've read about. Not much fading, long period of time & during the dead of winter.
I think I still have a short recording of this event from 36 years ago.
One of my most memorable was 7/29/07. First time I ever had E-skip with a log of 102.1 KTRA in Farmington, New Mexico. They were airing a country countdown show (it was a Sunday) and I heard the ID for KTRA, looked it up, and the rest is history.
Then 6/22/11 was memorable for one log - 101.1 KDBN Parachute, CO. I kept hearing mentions of Cumulus Media and Grand Junction, and looking them up they were a repeater for KKNN-95.1 in Grand Junction. I didn't think about the power until I found out it was 200 watts!! AND it made it over 900 miles into WA state from the middle of the Rockies!
Last month's extravaganza on 6/25 was also memorable for me - 630 mile short skip to KQJK 93.7 Roseville, CA. Never before have I gotten a Sacramento FM.
My dream is hearing strong 500-mile Es signals from areas like Pocatello, Redding, Reno etc. That would be FUN!
-crainbebo
Then 6/22/11 was memorable for one log - 101.1 KDBN Parachute, CO. I kept hearing mentions of Cumulus Media and Grand Junction, and looking them up they were a repeater for KKNN-95.1 in Grand Junction. I didn't think about the power until I found out it was 200 watts!! AND it made it over 900 miles into WA state from the middle of the Rockies!
Last month's extravaganza on 6/25 was also memorable for me - 630 mile short skip to KQJK 93.7 Roseville, CA. Never before have I gotten a Sacramento FM.
My dream is hearing strong 500-mile Es signals from areas like Pocatello, Redding, Reno etc. That would be FUN!
-crainbebo
Back in June 2003, my 1st E-Skip I heard WMBX in Jensen Beach FL from my home in Toms River NJ.
Since then I've moved to Upstate South Carolina and have logged a bunch over the pass few years,
notably KLTG in Corpus Christi, KRBE in Houston, KISS in San Antonio, KQKQ in Omaha, KMXN in Osage City KS, KBRB in Ainsworth NE. I've also picked up WOOF in Dothan AL & WBLX in Mobile AL, but not sure if that was E-Skip at only 400-500 miles.
Since then I've moved to Upstate South Carolina and have logged a bunch over the pass few years,
notably KLTG in Corpus Christi, KRBE in Houston, KISS in San Antonio, KQKQ in Omaha, KMXN in Osage City KS, KBRB in Ainsworth NE. I've also picked up WOOF in Dothan AL & WBLX in Mobile AL, but not sure if that was E-Skip at only 400-500 miles.
My next memorable for-sure E-skip will be my first. 
What would make a really memorable e-skip moment for me - would be something like sitting within the 130 dBµ contour of high-power FM in SoCal (like KPFK, KVYB, etc) listening on one of my Tecsun DSP radios ... and it gets totally wiped out (such that I can't even detect its carrier via another radio's local oscillator tuned off frequency) by multiple simultaneous airport tower VHF voice communications originating from Australia, central Europe, south central Asia, far South America, etc, and a plane in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
The closest I've come to e-skip, I think (can't confirm that it was as I never confirmed the station) was some weird quirk on one of my radios one afternoon several years ago. I was using a Panasonic RQ-SW10 or SW20 (same internals, one has a gimmick feature the other lacks) tuned around 100 FM (don't remember if it was 100.0, 100.1, 100.2, etc, but I think it was not a dot-odd frequency). I noticed I was getting some kind of food type TV show, making periodic mentions of Tenessee. Interestingly enough, I had to balance the local/DX switch in the in-between setting to receive the signal. I'm not really thinking I should count it as an Es "log", though.
Any suggestions on getting really good E-Skip from urban / suburban southern California, where pretty much every single frequency has a station (or IBOC) on it? Or will I have to settle for my nearly-routine reception of 103.3 KVYB at 212 miles to count as my "exotic FM DX"?
Also I'm curious about something - I'm also seeing tropo mentioned as well as Es in this thread. From what I've heard, tropo goes out to a certain distance, like several hundred miles, whereas E-skip is rare below 600 miles (using crainbebo's 630-mile example as a "benchmark". It seems like there could be a slight overlap, so ... would it ever be possible, if you were in the right place, to get the same station simultaneously by E-skip *AND* tropo? If so, what would the effect be like?
I'm not sure if this is OT, but I notice that when I go up on a high mountaintop north of L.A. or San Bernardino, I can get reliable reception of some AM stations from San Diego or Tijuana at midday that are unreadable or very weak (even on a radio with good selectivity) down in the main LA/SB area. Is it possible that rather than hearing their groundwave, I'm getting the initial upswing of their very-low-angle skywave BEFORE it approaches anywhere near the D-layer? I also routinely get San Diego and Tijuana FMs with fairly decent signals in those spots too.
What would make a really memorable e-skip moment for me - would be something like sitting within the 130 dBµ contour of high-power FM in SoCal (like KPFK, KVYB, etc) listening on one of my Tecsun DSP radios ... and it gets totally wiped out (such that I can't even detect its carrier via another radio's local oscillator tuned off frequency) by multiple simultaneous airport tower VHF voice communications originating from Australia, central Europe, south central Asia, far South America, etc, and a plane in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The closest I've come to e-skip, I think (can't confirm that it was as I never confirmed the station) was some weird quirk on one of my radios one afternoon several years ago. I was using a Panasonic RQ-SW10 or SW20 (same internals, one has a gimmick feature the other lacks) tuned around 100 FM (don't remember if it was 100.0, 100.1, 100.2, etc, but I think it was not a dot-odd frequency). I noticed I was getting some kind of food type TV show, making periodic mentions of Tenessee. Interestingly enough, I had to balance the local/DX switch in the in-between setting to receive the signal. I'm not really thinking I should count it as an Es "log", though.
Any suggestions on getting really good E-Skip from urban / suburban southern California, where pretty much every single frequency has a station (or IBOC) on it? Or will I have to settle for my nearly-routine reception of 103.3 KVYB at 212 miles to count as my "exotic FM DX"?
Also I'm curious about something - I'm also seeing tropo mentioned as well as Es in this thread. From what I've heard, tropo goes out to a certain distance, like several hundred miles, whereas E-skip is rare below 600 miles (using crainbebo's 630-mile example as a "benchmark". It seems like there could be a slight overlap, so ... would it ever be possible, if you were in the right place, to get the same station simultaneously by E-skip *AND* tropo? If so, what would the effect be like?
I'm not sure if this is OT, but I notice that when I go up on a high mountaintop north of L.A. or San Bernardino, I can get reliable reception of some AM stations from San Diego or Tijuana at midday that are unreadable or very weak (even on a radio with good selectivity) down in the main LA/SB area. Is it possible that rather than hearing their groundwave, I'm getting the initial upswing of their very-low-angle skywave BEFORE it approaches anywhere near the D-layer? I also routinely get San Diego and Tijuana FMs with fairly decent signals in those spots too.
Mine would be last year on July 24th.
It was something I had looked forward to for so long, hearing FM stations here in Florida from where I grew up in New Jersey.
I was getting stations from places like Philadelphia, New York, and Connecticut.
It was the biggest thrill to hear WIOQ Philadelphia and WPST Trenton on my radio here in Tampa!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O38Ij1HDj10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv6DtinKnNI
To make it more interesting, a facebook friend from upstate New York posted this story from the local paper on my wall when she saw my posts about hearing the stations from the northeast here in Florida.
http://thedailynewsonline.com/entertainment/article_6da68320-d675-11e1-91e3-0019bb2963f4.html
Tropo can go as far as E Skip in some cases.
My best tropo catch was from Brownsville Tx, @ 936 miles, about the same distance as the E Skip reception in my above videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkRK9nP1Li8
One day back in 1989, I was getting stations here from Houston via tropo reception. They were coming in strong and steady with no fading.
Then a day or two later, I was real surprised when I heard the same stations coming in again but they had rapid fading in and out and it was definitely E Skip.
It was something I had looked forward to for so long, hearing FM stations here in Florida from where I grew up in New Jersey.
I was getting stations from places like Philadelphia, New York, and Connecticut.
It was the biggest thrill to hear WIOQ Philadelphia and WPST Trenton on my radio here in Tampa!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O38Ij1HDj10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv6DtinKnNI
To make it more interesting, a facebook friend from upstate New York posted this story from the local paper on my wall when she saw my posts about hearing the stations from the northeast here in Florida.
http://thedailynewsonline.com/entertainment/article_6da68320-d675-11e1-91e3-0019bb2963f4.html
Tropo can go as far as E Skip in some cases.
My best tropo catch was from Brownsville Tx, @ 936 miles, about the same distance as the E Skip reception in my above videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkRK9nP1Li8
One day back in 1989, I was getting stations here from Houston via tropo reception. They were coming in strong and steady with no fading.
Then a day or two later, I was real surprised when I heard the same stations coming in again
but they had rapid fading in and out and it was definitely E Skip.I've had some memorable ones. I remember picking up News 95.7 out of Halifax, NS a few years ago. In that same opening, I heard multiple French stations. Another memorable one is getting stations from Billings, Helena, Casper, and Great Falls, wiping out some stations, including semi-local WIXX! More recently, I picked up a station out of Great Falls, MT that was carrying the same satellite feed as local WWKR (and also right down the dial!) This year, I heard a legal ID from KLTG.
E-skip is unpredictable, and I'm sure I've missed a few openings over the past few years.
E-skip is unpredictable, and I'm sure I've missed a few openings over the past few years.
I remember during overcast cool weather in the low 60's in July one time all of a sudden I was getting the East coast like Boston stations all over the FM dial. That lasted maybe 2 hours and it started like 7:00 that night. That was July of 2009 I think.
Too many to mention.. But here's my top three heard from Coldwater, MI.
3.) 2007- Es to Wyoming and Montana. Briefly scraped the Salt Lake City market with 97.5 Coalville, UT before fading away
2.) April 27th, 2011- Early season short skip to New York City and New Jersey! Only one station heard over 600 miles away. The weather conditions? 65 degrees and cloudy with light mist.
1.) July 7th, 2009- Double-hop Es to Dominican Republic! I had HIGM 88.1 Santiago, DR (Primera FM) from 1,763 miles not once, but TWO different times during the same day. I had a mp3 recording of HIGM and shared it with one DX'er who 100% confirmed my log. However, a DX'pert said that 2x Es is rare enough as it is, but hearing the same station twice, several hours apart, in one day is extremely rare and my case may have been the first ever. Unfortunately, I didn't have the recorder rolling during the evening Primera catch, so there's no way to prove (for the purpose of other DX'ers) that I did indeed accomplish this.
3.) 2007- Es to Wyoming and Montana. Briefly scraped the Salt Lake City market with 97.5 Coalville, UT before fading away
2.) April 27th, 2011- Early season short skip to New York City and New Jersey! Only one station heard over 600 miles away. The weather conditions? 65 degrees and cloudy with light mist.
1.) July 7th, 2009- Double-hop Es to Dominican Republic! I had HIGM 88.1 Santiago, DR (Primera FM) from 1,763 miles not once, but TWO different times during the same day. I had a mp3 recording of HIGM and shared it with one DX'er who 100% confirmed my log. However, a DX'pert said that 2x Es is rare enough as it is, but hearing the same station twice, several hours apart, in one day is extremely rare and my case may have been the first ever. Unfortunately, I didn't have the recorder rolling during the evening Primera catch, so there's no way to prove (for the purpose of other DX'ers) that I did indeed accomplish this.
Most memorable FM skip for me was in June 1988 while living in Alberta at the time.
One particular day it started to appear unusually early in the morning around 8:30 AM and lasted well into the night then reappearing early once again the next morning almost in the same pattern.
First off were stations audible mostly from California followed by more a bit later on from New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada. By afternoon it continued on with stations appearing from Texas, Oklahoma , Kansas , Missouri, Nebraska etc. In the evening , stations from Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota and amany of the states around the Great Lakes area.
This seemed to be the distinctive order and pattern in events each time FM skip rolled into Alberta on other occasions.
That day in particular stands out though as many of the stations audible had stellar signals with little or no fade and long duration
One particular day it started to appear unusually early in the morning around 8:30 AM and lasted well into the night then reappearing early once again the next morning almost in the same pattern.
First off were stations audible mostly from California followed by more a bit later on from New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada. By afternoon it continued on with stations appearing from Texas, Oklahoma , Kansas , Missouri, Nebraska etc. In the evening , stations from Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota and amany of the states around the Great Lakes area.
This seemed to be the distinctive order and pattern in events each time FM skip rolled into Alberta on other occasions.
That day in particular stands out though as many of the stations audible had stellar signals with little or no fade and long duration
On FM... listening just outside of Cleveland, OH I've logged stations in Moultrie, GA, Rapid City, SD, and Gillette, WY. When I lived in southern Ohio I pulled in TV channel 2 one morning from Miami, FL.
Has there ever been an e-skip so dramatic it made the mainstream news headlines? I've heard of a major e-skip opening several years ago (that I totally missed out on) - any chance that one was enough to, for example, have L.A.-area stations all over the top of local NYC co-channels in downtown NYC (within the locals' 100+ dBu contours, or whatever is necessary for receiving a perfect-quality signal in the basement of a steel-frame building using a cheap Coby-grade portable with no antenna while the radio is physically touching a plasma tv or fluorescent lamp)? Or have mainstream news stations doing out-of-area traffic reports and the like (because a Miami's signal was overloading Tecsun PL-390s (or equivalent that existed at the time) and Sony XDR-F1HDs, with receiving antennas removed, in Seattle (to the point where you have badly distorted audio and squeals when tuned on-channel, and scanning through the band the station is received at the same volume on every single channel), yet obliterated within 25 feet of their own tower)?
Nothing that huge of course - but July 6, 2004 was a huge E-skip opening on the East Coast that made some local TV station's 11:00 news, because thousands of FM listeners were confused, having almost every local wiped out by 1000-mile away Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi etc.
-crainbebo
-crainbebo
Also about 6 years ago maybe in December I was driving to work and all of a sudden this station was coming in super strong and it was like a french station. It was there for 5 minutes and gone. I am pretty sure it was from overseas. That was really cool too and it was cold that day maybe in the 20's and this was in December of all months!
I've only ever caught two instances of ES here and one while traveling, one huge one in july (i think 30th or 31st) of 2009 bringing stations from as far north as Quebec, all the way down the east coast to North Carolina, to north Alabama, I remember hearing multiple french canadian stations, as well as Vermont, Boston, Philadelphia, Maryland, DC, Virginia, and North Carolina, lasted for several hours and slowly drifted southward before finally dying off. I had Bostons 104.1 WBCN loud and crystal clear while looking right at the tower of the local 100kw 104.3. a majority of this was on the factory radio of a 2004 Monte Carlo, that has terrible bleed problems, and a window antenna that can hardly pick up anything that isn't local to boot. Next one wasn't so big, I was sitting in the house listening to WZRR out of Birmingham AL, a fairly easy 100 mile catch, when it faded out and another rock station began taking over the frequency. This other station lasted only a couple minutes, before it shifted back to WZRR. I later identified the other station by the songs that were played as 99.5 The Mountain from Denver CO. The one I got while traveling happened on I-65 south of Montgomery AL, 105.3 from Dallas TX was coming in for several miles, nothing else out of place.
michigandxer said:
Probably something from Quebec. I've gotten TV e-skip on CH 4 from eastern Quebec. Two different French language stations coming in at one. BTW, whereabouts in Michigan are you located?
June 6, 2004 - my second e-skip opening ever. I had a boombox radio and got over 100 logs (of course, at that time, every station logged was a new log for me).
July 24, 2012 - another very strong e-skip opening that brought almost all Florida stations south of I-4 to NJ, many in HD. Then a noontime lull, and all hell broke loose in the afternoon with all the locals obliterated by e-skip 4-5 stations deep on every frequency.
July 3, 2011 - an e-skip to Miami, that's only memorable because I discovered the soft AC format of Easy 93.1, which I still listen to online.
sometime in July 2007 - An e skip opening that lasted for hours. It lasted so long I missed a dinner date with my girlfriend at that time, and when she found out the reason was e-skip, she broke up with me.
sometime in June 2010 - A late night e-skip opening. I was on the air at my 100 watt college station, and someone heard my voice over the air in Louisiana, over 1000 miles away.
July 24, 2012 - another very strong e-skip opening that brought almost all Florida stations south of I-4 to NJ, many in HD. Then a noontime lull, and all hell broke loose in the afternoon with all the locals obliterated by e-skip 4-5 stations deep on every frequency.
July 3, 2011 - an e-skip to Miami, that's only memorable because I discovered the soft AC format of Easy 93.1, which I still listen to online.
sometime in July 2007 - An e skip opening that lasted for hours. It lasted so long I missed a dinner date with my girlfriend at that time, and when she found out the reason was e-skip, she broke up with me.
sometime in June 2010 - A late night e-skip opening. I was on the air at my 100 watt college station, and someone heard my voice over the air in Louisiana, over 1000 miles away.
For me it would have to been an off-season E-skip Feb 2008 event where I heard KFWR 95.9 from Texas coming in so strong here in Ohio that it was actually bleeding over onto a very local WKFM 96.1. Now I wonder if there are conditions where an e cloud(s) would not only refract the signal but actually magnify it somehow in the process perhaps due to the interaction of the RF signal with the e-cloud(s)?
My most memorable long distance FM catch was picking up a hometown station while over 1200 miles away. It was July of 1999, and I picked up 97.9 WRMF/Palm Beach from my family's summer place in coastal RI. I am not sure if it was e-skip or tropo - I also picked up Portland, ME's Q 97-9 that same day - but it was quite memorable.
Another honorable mention: picking up various Ventura County, CA stations while driving through Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.
Another honorable mention: picking up various Ventura County, CA stations while driving through Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.
The first E Skip encountered in 2007, From Northern New Jersey I tuned to 98.3 on my Grundig radio to listen to K JOY out of Long Island and I heard oldies when I turned the antenna a certain way. I listened for the station ID and it was KUQL out of Mitchell, SD! I was really impressed and didn't think it was possible at the time
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