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Shortest VHF E-skip

Ai4i

Ai4i

People are always talking about distance records, so let up consider the opposite.
What was the closest FM or TV station that you have received by E-skip?
I would say that mine from Miami would be either
Channel five in Wilmington, NC (snowy and brief) or
Channel two in San Juan, PR (strong and lengthy)
 
At the very beginning of that spectacular E Skip opening on July 24, 2012 where I was hearing FM stations from all over the northeast in Tampa, one of the first stations I heard was from North Carolina.

I don't recall the station's exact location because the reception was short lived but soon after that, I started hearing familiar stations from Philadelphia, Trenton, and the shore.

So I'm guessing the North Carolina reception was roughly 500 miles, give or take 100.
 
Shortest VHF E-skip I got from central Connecticut? Probably WFMY-TV (CBS) channel 2 of Greensboro, NC.

Turn it around: Farthest UHF station I ever picked up in the analog era was WBOC-TV (CBS) channel 16 of Salisbury, MD. It was a warm and humid night in the summer of 1988. WPHL-TV (MY) channel 17 of Philadelphia was in and out that evening as well.
 
I was never a fervent FM or TV DXer, so I'm poorly versed in such things as ESkip and Trope, or the distinctions and extremes within. All I've known is that DX is DX, irrespective of waveband, and the reception of anything unusual is riveting.

Around 1971, my Dad Al* bought a new TV console that contained UHF capability. And one afternoon near JFK Airport, with only a mere and traditional attic TV antenna pointed at the Empire State Building, I tuned around the UHF dial and got a decent-enough signal from the aforementioned WBOC, channel 16, from MD.
Dad never understood my enthusiasm for DX of any sort. I'm supposing now that the WBOC-16 reception was 'trope'.
That generation gap is understandable. Dad was a lab technician at Mobil for 35 years and could tell you what *state* the car whose muffler residue he was analyzing had driven through recently. But he could not comprehend why, at the Folks' retirement home in Florida, there were two Channel 9's on his cable remote -- WGN Chicago for the Cubs and WWOR New York with his Mets games. The twain never met between us two as far as distance and states and subsequent intrigue and curiosity went.

*Different Al from the singer and reverend
 
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Shortest FM skip I've received were two stations from Jackson Hole, WY on July 2nd, 2015. KZJH-95.3 (Classic Rock) and KJAX-93.5 (Country), both in briefly when the 6m map was lit up in red lines. They are both only 526 miles. I've also had Salt Lake City on Es (97.5/101.1) which is only 585 miles, both logged two days AFTER Jackson Hole. I hope to get eastern Idaho on skip someday, but it's less than 500 miles.
 
Pardon my uncouth FM & TV DX upbringing ....

I'd always been of the belief that tropo was some weirdness that brought in DX from 200-400 miles off, for up to hours at a time. We were on Long Island once, during an incredible fog, listening on a cheap portable to seemingly every FM station licensed to Norfolk VA.

And that E-skip is a more skitterish and fleeting reception -- a lot further than trope -- but that doesn't last as long as trope does.

And of the belief that trope hugs the earth by being guided along the lower atmospehere, whereas E-skip winds up soaring much higher and thus bouncing down off a higher level of atmosphere.

Plus, I've heard that both trope and e-skip are reciprocal? In other words, If I'm listening to Oldies 108 Sarasota in my house (which I've done) then DXers in and around that place in Florida are hearing T-102 out of our Pottsville?

Any and all theories, agreements and outright dismissals are welcome here, hi.
 
I don't know that the folks in Florida would specifically be receiving Pottsville, but they might be getting the general region. Tropo can be 500 miles or so, and yes it tends to be steady and sometimes last hours and days. The phenomenon to credit is temperature inversion. Fog doesn't make tropo happen, but fog that covers several states is a good indicator of long haul tropo. I had a situation working for a small TV station in Indiana where there was tropo that made it so we couldn't monitor ourselves off the air.

I've heard of E-Skip as close in as 600 miles but have never experienced it myself.
 
Most of the time it's reciprocal. If I'm hearing 96.5 in Grand Island, then a Grand Island or Kearney person should be getting Tri-Cities, Yakima, Seattle or Wenatchee on FM. Sometimes it isn't the case. Sometimes it's so localized that I only get Es from one TOWER in a market. I've had 95.5 KAIQ Wolfforth TX (Lubbock market) with no sign of KLLL, the 97.3, Awesome 98, etc. Same with localized markets. KLJZ 93.1 and KTTI 95.1 are common as dirt in the summer, from Yuma. At least a couple times a year, I have openings that only go to Yuma, and thus nothing else comes in. If I find a phase null on the KOLU 88.9 translator, KAWC might come in. I'd love to get the 100.9 but alas we have a local.
 
In the late nineteen sixties and early seventies, I had not yet gotten my amateur radio license but was somewhat active on eleven meters.
In the daytime, skywave signals were usually from at least a kilo-mile away, but late, late at night is when the short skip would come in, like from northwest Florida to Miami.
I wonder whether the same holds true for FM and TV skip; that the short skip would come in at those unexpected and awkward hours.
I really do not recall ever getting skywave signals above 54MHz during those hours.
 
My shortest confirmed (via RDS) e-skip logging is KRWG in Las Cruces, NM, at 530 miles on May 28, 2015.

Non-confirmed, I've logged what I think was K216FX (a translator for Moody Radio station WJSO) on 91.1 in Mena, AR, at 431 miles on June 28, 2015. There are two other Moody stations on 91.1 - WKES in Florida and KMWY in Wyoming. All of my other e-skip loggings that morning were from the midwest U.S., so KMWY seems likely; however, only K216FX matched the time slots on the Moody website for the programs I was hearing.
 
I hope not to take this thread *that* far out of focus .... this is just an audio observation from yesterday (Saturday) in the midday fog.

No doubt you more trenchant FM/TV DXers have your own 'pilot' station or two as a guide. Here is my 'pilot' station for what I guess is trope reception.

https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WDSD&service=FM

We're completely off the map, living near the 'd' in the Radio-Locator banner at the top.
WDSD has been Country for decades. They were an excellent barometer back on Long Island, and remains so here. Yesterday in the car, WDSD was the only 94.7 station, unfading, and quite solid. Many DelMarVa mentions, along with 2018 Cowboy songs.

Neighbouring WDAC Lancaster PA on 94.5, religious, was even louder.

Do any of you folks have such a guide station to punch up in the car, away from the computer and the reception maps there which I've seen only briefly, either for trope or E-skip? WDSD Dover DE is mine (at least for trope).
 
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