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Out of market station reception in Central Massachusetts

B

BostonProvidence

Friday Night 6/25/21 in Central Massachusetts, there was numerous out of market stations being received in Central Massachusetts with several stations from Connecticut, Long Island NY, Cape Cod (not in usual listening range of Cape Cod stations), New Hampshire, Maine all being received locally. While I have been able to manage to get a handful of stations be received before at night and not during the day on numerous other nights before, Friday Night had a unusual number of stations that were able to be received locally and that I was not able to hear locally before in years if not ever before. And this was with a portable regular radio, not a special one for out of market reception, so I am wondering what was causing all these stations to be able to be received last night?

List of stations I was able to receive last night I am listing below: (All of the below stations I am outside of the "fringe" reception on radio-locator maps as well, and these stations rarely come in here, if ever, on scale of reception, stations with 5/5 had strongest reception and displayed RDS on display, stations with 4/5 had a loud signal which is a sign of good reception on my radio)
88.5 WFCR (Signal Strength 3/5)
89.1 WBUH (Signal Strength 5/5)
89.3 WNPN (Signal Strength 2/5)
90.1 WCAI (Signal Strength 3/5)
94.9 WHOM (Signal Strength 2/5)
95.1 WRKI (Signal Strength 3/5)
95.7 WZID (Signal Strength 3/5)
95.9 WCRI (Signal Strength 3/5)
96.3 WEII (Signal Strength 2/5)
96.5 WTIC (Signal Strength 3/5)
97.5 WALK (Signal Strength 4/5)
99.3 WMNP (Signal Strength 4/5)
99.7 WEAN (Signal Strength 2/5)
99.9 WQRC (Signal Strength 5/5)
100.3 WHEB (Signal Strength 4/5)
100.5 WRCH (Signal Strength 3/5)
100.9 WKNL (Signal Strength 1/5, but managed to get a ID)
101.1 WGIR (Signal Strength 2/5)
101.5 WKFY (Signal Strength 2/5, and sometimes I still manage to get WWBB in, although it's spotty after the 2014 coverage reduction)
101.9, 102.1 and 102.9 were unidentifiable, but a signal strength of 1/5 or 2/5 was noted on both channels
104.7 WOCN (Signal Strength 4/5)
105.5 WQGN (Signal Strength 2/5)
106.1 WCOD (Signal Strength 3/5)
106.5 WBMW (Signal Strength 4/5)
106.9 and 107.1 unidentifiable, signal strength of 1/5 on both
107.5 WFCC (Signal Strength 3/5)
107.7 WWRX (Signal Strength 3/5)

I am wondering what caused all of the above stations to be able to be received 100-125-150 miles away from the transmitters? Was it the weather, a tropo, or DXing? If someone has more knowledge of what causes stations from this distance to be able to be received locally, I would like to know.

I also left out stations from Boston/Providence/Worcester (which I was able to receive like normal and these stations manage to be received on a daily usual basis locally), however I included Southern Rhode Island which usually isn't received this far north.
 
I heard that they are called tropicals. One night during the late 90's, I had picked up several stations from the Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Hampton Roads Region. That was a very entertaining night!
 
Retro said:
I heard that they are called tropicals. One night during the late 90's, I had picked up several stations from the Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Hampton Roads Region. That was a very entertaining night!
Click to expand...
Actually, it is called “tropo”, as in “tropo(spheric)scatter”—i.e., bending of the VHF-UHF airwaves in the weather related troposhere...in this case, caused by the fair weather fog.
I did a post way-back-when in Boston Radio Interest, giving a capsule summary of broadcast dx:

  Propagation 101

A good, “live” tropo map is the “APRS Map”:

  VHF Propagation Map

Serious tropo around here is wherever you see dark red blobs: A couple of weeks ago (Sun nite/Mon morning Jun13-14) there was a dark ribbon of red from about Bangor ME down to NYC and—guess what?—there was strong “tropo” from NH-ME, down to SErn MA/Cape/RI, over to CT/NYC with a few stations!
 
Some tropo reception for me--WWDB FM Philly in Lynn. The NY classical station (WQXR?) in Essex.
Before WMWM went full time I put 91.7 on my car radio just before going in (on yet?--nope, gotta switch us on) and got WPCC Pensacola FL.
More recently in Beverly, some GA and FL stations.
Visiting a friend in OH he was getting a New Orleans FM.
New England area FMs can bounce in this time of year on N Shore--CT, ME, Cape Cod

TV tropo--Nahant yrs ago w rooftop antenna,
ch 2 used to be off air at times and I'd get stations from FL or IN or something.
20 yrs ago here in Beverly on a portable TV with antenna, some UHFs from VT, CT, NY. Chs 8
and 13 from Portland.RI's ch 64. Western MA etc
 
Last edited:
raccoonradio said:
Some tropo reception for me--WWDB FM Philly in Lynn. The NY classical station (WQXR?) in Essex.
Before WMWM went full time I put 91.7 on my car radio just before going in (on yet?--nope, gotta switch us on) and got WPCC Pensacola FL.
More recently in Beverly, some GA and FL stations.
Visiting a friend in OH he was getting a New Orleans FM.
New England area FMs can bounce in this time of year on N Shore--CT, ME, Cape Cod
Click to expand...
Wouldn't your Florida and Georgia catches and the Louisiana station heard in Ohio be E-skip (Es) rather than tropo?
 
Every so often on 2 meters we'd have folks from the Atlantic coast down towards New Jersey. I've worked a station as far north as Prince Edward Island. This was back 20+ years ago though, 2 meters is pretty dead these days.
 
CTListener said:
Wouldn't your Florida and Georgia catches and the Louisiana station heard in Ohio be E-skip (Es) rather than tropo?
Click to expand...
Yes, e-skip; thought maybe both phenomena were same thing. The tropo being more regional...Another tropo I remember was late at night, WHUS 91.7 Storrs CT
in Woburn.
 
Methuselah said:
Every so often on 2 meters we'd have folks from the Atlantic coast down towards New Jersey. I've worked a station as far north as Prince Edward Island. This was back 20+ years ago though, 2 meters is pretty dead these days.
Click to expand...
Speaking of P..E.I., while not a Tropo, back during the 90's, I could pick 720 CTHN, St. John from my Walkman while getting out of work at night in The Financial District.

And 20 years ago, a news station out of Montrea, 940 AM used to beam quite well into the Allston/Brookline area during late afternoon and later also.
 
Retro said:
Speaking of P..E.I., while not a Tropo, back during the 90's, I could pick 720 CTHN, St. John from my Walkman while getting out of work at night in The Financial District.
Click to expand...

720 belonged to that Canadian station for years on the North Shore -- all day if you were on Lynn Shore Drive. It faded rapidly as you moved inland.
 
CHSJ 700 St John NB came in like a local in Gloucester.

"CHSJ changed its AM frequency several times: to 700 in 1988..."
Later (1998) shut off as they moved to 94.1 (Wiki)
 
raccoonradio said:
CHSJ 700 St John NB came in like a local in Gloucester.

"CHSJ changed its AM frequency several times: to 700 in 1988..."
Later (1998) shut off as they moved to 94.1 (Wiki)
Click to expand...
I think I may have been thinking of CHSJ 700 in my previous post. The station I remember hearing in Lynn and Swampscott had a country music format. Was that CHTN (not, as the OP had it, CTHN, which would be in Portugal's allocation) or CHSJ?
 
I remember getting FM from Iowa and Nebraska one hot summer day, and that same day our local top 40 in Providence, JB-105, had a caller on who was listening in Lincoln NE. It was going both ways.
 
raccoonradio said:
I think 700 was CHSJ, with the calls migrating to FM then the AM was shut off.Country.
Click to expand...
Yes CHSJ was on 700 from St John, NB and CHTN was on 720, from Charlottetown, PEI. They had changed frequencies in the past. Both had very good daytime signals near the coast of Mass.
 
Update from earlier post:

There hasn't been any tropos since then.
Not sure what station was on 102.9 (Also think it could of been WPXC in addition to WDRE/WBLM, but signal was too marginable to tell, wouldn't of been surprised if it was WPXC since WQRC was coming in like a local and both WPXC/WQRC share the same tower).
WFCR signal drops out sharply 10 minutes or so from where I live (South/East of Worcester), so it would be a tropo/dx to pull in. I get decent reception from the Providence area stations than I do the stations from the Springfield/Western Massachusetts area. I manage to also get decent reception from like 97.3/98.1 New Bedford/99.1 Plymouth/99.9 Cape Cod than I do WFCR/Western Massachusetts area stations.

I remember a Maine/New Hampshire tropo on 5/11/18 where I managed to receive WCLZ (98.9) and WTHT (99.9) with 5/5 signal strength in the same location in Central Massachusetts (both those two stations that night had reception that compared to the stations coming from Boston), and numerous other Portland area stations were doing a 3/5 or 4/5 as well on that night.
 
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