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Personal record DTV Tropo 4-27-2012

C

cd637299

Guest
Record DTV Tropo, killing my old 780 mile record from 2 years ago:

KENS DT 39 (virtual 5) San Antonio TX from Pembroke Pines FL....1090 miles!!

Also KNVA DT 49 (virtual 54) Austin TX, similar distance!

I need to have this on my YouTube page.

cd
 
Nice cd! Lots of big tropo going on down south. Nada thing here. I want 108 MUF Es!

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
Nice cd! Lots of big tropo going on down south. Nada thing here. I want 108 MUF Es!

-crainbebo
Click to expand...

Yuppers but we will be getting thunderstorms on Saturday....gotta clean up *now*!

BTW also 98.1 Austin, and 106.5 mentioning KYTX, so this is KOOI Jacksonville TX....on my car radio, BTW!

cd
 
cd637299 said:
Record DTV Tropo, killing my old 780 mile record from 2 years ago:

KENS DT 39 (virtual 5) San Antonio TX from Pembroke Pines FL....1090 miles!!

Also KNVA DT 49 (virtual 54) Austin TX, similar distance!

I need to have this on my YouTube page.

cd
Click to expand...

Isn't this in DTV DX record territory? Can't say I recall anyone else logging 1000+-mile DTV tropo.
 
MarioMania said:
How are you getting it? If it's on UHF
Click to expand...

Tropo, especially over the gulf can reach these kinds of distances. If you check out Hepburn's tropo maps there is some really strong tropo over the gulf right now.

As far as it being a record, the furthest DTV tropo I see mentioned on Wikipedia was at 995 miles, so this 1000+ mile catch could very well be a record.
http://www.qsl.net/wa5iyx/dtv-capt.htm#29
 
There is an 1100-mile catch (WOPX 48 FL seen in MA) now listed, though not in Wiki. One site has listed San Antonio as 1142; I have to deduct at least 12 due to my location from the downtown area. I certainly do not want to be in any competition, because he is in our club. His *might* be further than the 1100.

The only Tropo I have had farther west is 96.3 FM in Del Rio TX in 1994. I had Tropo as far east as Puerto Rico in 1992.....but of course these were long before DTV was here.

cd
 
Super catch cd!!!

I get 1124 miles from the KENS xmtr site to downtown Pembroke Pines, and 1108 miles from the KVNA site.

Chris
 
cd637299 said:
Record DTV Tropo, killing my old 780 mile record from 2 years ago:

KENS DT 39 (virtual 5) San Antonio TX from Pembroke Pines FL....1090 miles!!

Also KNVA DT 49 (virtual 54) Austin TX, similar distance!

I need to have this on my YouTube page.

cd
Click to expand...

Congrats on that catch!

That's awesome.


SInce it seems the tropo forecast maps haven't been forecasting much to write home about this season, I stopped looking a while back and I now can kick myself for missing this one.
 
When the conditions are right this time of year, UHF used to be interesting too until analog ended in 2009.

I can remember many a day where our local UHF channels would have those co channel interference 'lines' even in the middle of the day when tropo conditions are usually at their weakest.
 
Yes it seems that cross-Gulf Tropo is not as commonplace as it once was.

I believe that I have caught a lot of Mexican FM via E-skip; but, believe it or not, my first one I bagged with an actual ID was via Tropo, the 98.5 in Merida, Yucatan.

I believe I caught XERV ch 9 Reynosa via Tropo about, hmm, I cannot even recall---maybe 1994 with the Del Rio FM.

I twice received the analog KETH 14 Houston--1989 & 1998.

I caught New Orleans area via Tropo last April....was hoping it would reach TX---and I think I got a signal bar on RF 8, but it did not decode. But now I am thankful to say that I got it now---never woulda dreamed it'd be San Antone!

BTW was checking the car radio just a few minutes ago----nada! (I am not at home yet.) Is anyone near the FL Panhandle/TX Gulf Coast/La./MS/AL getting anything? How about you, gar fla?

cd
 
I just checked and nothing but some minor tropo from north Florida.

Jeez, I really should have gotten the hint yesterday when on the local news, they were saying the air quality was bad because of a large stagnant air mass on top of us.

That's a classic sign of a tropo set up in this area.

I twice received the analog KETH 14 Houston--1989 & 1998.
Click to expand...

I remember an FM tropo opening in 1989 when I heard a station from Houston, a top 40 pop station (I forget the name or call letters).

It was my best tropo catch to date.

Then within only a couple of weeks, I heard the same station via E skip and I could tell it was E skip because of the rapid fading in and out.
 
cd637299 said:
BTW was checking the car radio just a few minutes ago----nada! (I am not at home yet.) Is anyone near the FL Panhandle/TX Gulf Coast/La./MS/AL getting anything? How about you, gar fla?
Click to expand...

Yes, and my FM reception has been from all over the place. I'm in Baldwin County, AL, right between Pensacola and Mobile. I posted a good rundown of what I got in the N Florida board here…

Yesterday when it was calming down I got Houston, Tallahassee and Albany pretty well in addition to closer "DX regulars" like Panama City, Dothan and Hattiesburg.

Tonight it's been weirder. WZZK from Birmingham is in like a local, as are WHHY and WMXS from Montgomery. Earlier I got data but no decode for the HD signal of WTSU out of the same area. Then out of the blue I just ID'd Fox 107.7 out of Darien, GA, playing to the Jacksonville, FL market. That's a record distance for me to the east since I moved to the coast! Also I heard 99.1 from Greenwood, MS; not only is that an odd catch but it's my old stomping grounds and I used to listen to them all the time. Weird hearing them all the way down here.

I've never tried TV DX and never got anything interesting back in the analog days, so your catches are most impressive to me.
 
By all accounts, the tropo seems to be calming down.

Fortunately, I got a little taste here in Memphis this morning. I am a VHF-centric ham and had been watching the bands for days as the opening lingered south of me. This morning, though, a couple of hams around Gainesville were LOUD on 144 MHz. I also worked an operator in Jacksonville -- an area I had not worked on 2 meters before. It's not a huge distance, but I was glad to knock JAX off my needed list.

This opening reminds me somewhat of the one in April, 2006. For fours days, Florida, Texas, et. al. were incrediy loud. Had the warm front moved north earlier this week, this opening might have been similarly useful. But... not so much.

Enjoy.

DE
 
Well, my area has thunderstorms forecast the next SIX DAYS, so no more super Tropo for me. Any DX would have to be E-skip.

The Tropo maps are still good for much of the Florida coastlines, but I'm in the "U"...that's the "unsettled area".

I'm just thankful to grab that before the storms came. BTW, I had just caught that KENS & KNVA maybe within 5 minutes of coming home from work...if I had arrived 10 minutes later, I woulda missed it!

cd
 
Good catches, Chris. Congratulations.

But, yeah... Thunderstorms are indicative of instability. And, of course, stability is what brings about tropo. You're likely done. But, it rocked while it lasted.

Gulf tropo rules. I miss my days on the Mississippi Coast. Amazing stuff.

DE
 
I meant to post this earlier, but turned off the pc....

I did not have a full-fledged outdoor TV antenna in spring (March or so) 1991, but I did have an FM antenna. There was a massive Tropo during that time, that I feel like relating here....(this was when I bagged XHMT 98.5 Merida)

I had no idea what was really going on at first....I had NPR or some public radio on 89.1, figuring it to be WUFT Gainesville FL, but the ID came, "KSTX San Antonio." (I think the antenna was pointed to Gainesville!)

If *that* wasn't enough, I heard a bilingual-ish DJ on 105.5. I think I already had one or two Brownsville TX-area stations, KQXX 98.5 being one of them....but this turned out to be class-A (at that time) KITM Mission TX, right thru WIXI in Naples, practically the same azimuth!

I never really got an ID, but I decided to call them up (maybe the next day)....I asked for the DJ to possibly verify for me if it was KITM. I played my tape over the phone, and got the response: "That's me!!!" I think his name was Hernandez.

I may have received a Spanish Christian class A in TX on 97.7 also, as Mexico had no religious programming at the time. never asked about that one, and I shoulda followed up.

If only I had a TV antenna as well.... :)

cd
 
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