• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Tropo Hotspots

A

Andrew K

While I was driving from Elyria to Cleveland on I-90 a couple days ago, I was consistently receiving WTSS 102.5 Buffalo from a distance of about 200 miles. The signal travels across Lake Erie without any problems, and the tropospheric ducting made it receivable just like any local station with RDS display. This made me think about areas that are good for tropo.

I recall about 10 years ago picking up Detroit local FM stations in the southern Buffalo, NY suburbs on I-90. That’s a clear shot across Lake Erie of about 225-250 miles. It seems like every time I look at the tropo maps, the Gulf of Mexico has got some “extreme” tropo going on. I was reading some notable tropo examples on Wikipedia, and it turns out that tropo can extend up to a couple thousand miles!! My furthest ever where I live in Akron was probably Chicago… about 350 miles, but my area isn’t ideal for tropo. I don’t live near Lake Erie which enhances it.

So does anyone have personal examples of tropo hotspots? Tropo seems to be affected greatly by FM overload, so I try to stay away from any nearby powerful FM towers.
 
I agree that Lake Erie helps enhancing signals. I can receive 245 mile distant CHCD 98.9 Simcoe, ON any given day (albeit with varying strength) using my home set-up. A pretty good deal of that path hops across Lake Erie to my location about 80 miles inland. Another one that makes it in, although not as often as Simcoe, is WRTS 103.7 out of Erie, PA. Cleveland and Akron can both be sniffed out of the static on any given day, especially 99.5 WGAR and 97.5 WONE.

I don't get the kind of Lake Michigan enhancement that people closer to the lake shore receive. I'll get the Chicago stations and occasionally the big Milwaukee signals, but rarely anything big.
 
Lawppy said:
I agree that Lake Erie helps enhancing signals. I can receive 245 mile distant CHCD 98.9 Simcoe, ON any given day (albeit with varying strength) using my home set-up. A pretty good deal of that path hops across Lake Erie to my location about 80 miles inland. Another one that makes it in, although not as often as Simcoe, is WRTS 103.7 out of Erie, PA. Cleveland and Akron can both be sniffed out of the static on any given day, especially 99.5 WGAR and 97.5 WONE.

I don't get the kind of Lake Michigan enhancement that people closer to the lake shore receive. I'll get the Chicago stations and occasionally the big Milwaukee signals, but rarely anything big.
Click to expand...

Where exactly are you located in Michigan? I live about 1.5 miles from the 97.5 WONE tower (and many other stations), and it's quite a nuisance with overloading. So it sure doesn't make it easy to FM DX at my house.
 
There's an area in the east part of my town (Monroe, WA) where I can get 165-mile KKCW 103.3 almost 24/7, but it's very fuzzy and suffers sometimes from aircraft scatter from KWLN 103.3 Wilson Creek, WA (140mi) w/ Mexican music. KMTT's Seattle translator is GONE by the time you reach Monroe.

At my relative's farm near Yakima I can get KCMB 104.7 La Grande, OR 140mi at any given time.

Also at Pacific Beach and Moclips, WA, 165 mi reception of KCRF 96.7 Lincoln City, OR is almost 24/7. It gets even better when you take your radio onto the beach itself, probably due to line of sight. KPPT 100.7 Depoe Bay also likes to pick fights with 100-mi KKWF, and KYTE 102.7 Newport, OR (170 mi) is very common as well, usually fuzzy but sometimes surprisingly strong.

-crainbebo
 
Perhaps the king of all stable long-distance tropo paths runs from Santa Barbara down the California coast to San Diego. I can reliably hear KVYB 103.3 Santa Barbara from Solana Beach, close to 200 miles distant. It's almost entirely a water path, and there's almost always an inversion layer to help carry the signal along.

WTFDA member Roy Barstow out at Teaticket, on Cape Cod, routinely watches UHF TV from the Norfolk, Virginia market throughout the summer. That's got to be about a 400-mile path.
 
I also recall being on a cruise in 2005. I was just south of the island of Eleuthera Bahamas, and I was receiving almost every local Miami and West Palm Beach FM radio station. This was a distance of 250 to 300 miles.
 
If I had a good setup (similar to the one Lawppy has), I bet I could get WBCV (107.9) and WAXX (104.5) almost 24/7. Many of the bigger Milwaukee stations (102.1 excepted) make it to Manistee regularly, especially 93.3, 99.1, and 107.7.

With local WOUF off, WOWN (99.3) is in regularly despite being a C3 over 100 miles away.
 
Where exactly are you located in Michigan? I live about 1.5 miles from the 97.5 WONE tower (and many other stations), and it's quite a nuisance with overloading. So it sure doesn't make it easy to FM DX at my house.
Click to expand...

I live in Coldwater, approximately 85 miles from Lake Erie and 75 miles from Lake Michigan.

In the case of CHCD, I believe their signal here is helped by Lake Erie, even though they don't have a direct lake water path to my location. However, the entire length of Ohio's North Coast has an almost unrestricted lake water path to Simcoe, Ontario. I bet they blast into that region when lake enhancement is happening. Perhaps our resident Ohio DX'ers can vouch for that.
 
There is NO hotspot like the Gulf Coast. Ducting across the Gulf can reach 1000 miles and can be remarkably strong.

One small example: When I lived on the Mississippi Coast, I could point my antenna SE. On almost any day, 104.7 from Tampa would be there. Loud. At 400+ miles.

I miss being so close to the water.

DE
 
Has anyone picked up Cuba or The Bahamas in Florida?
 
From Scott Fybush (who I understand knows a little about this :- ) :
.. ' ...Perhaps the king of all stable long-distance tropo paths runs from Santa Barbara down the California coast to San Diego....' <<

I'm nowhere near the Meter-Shower Chaser a lot of you folks enviably are. My point thus is, on the relatively few times I've spun dial, Tropo was centered somewhere to include an area from Cape Cod to the DelMarVa peninsula. Sometimes it would stretch north (to Halifax NS) and south (to Elizabeth City NC).
But the Jersey Shore, Rhode Island, Balt-DC, Long Island and DelMarVa always seemed to get invited to the festivities.

The Atlantic Coast stretch which includes that humid northeast corridor also gets a lot of that torpor, punctually, from the Bermuda High stagnancy, sometimes for up to a week.

I miss the water out here in landlocked NE PA, but I've heard some trope. Yet I insist that E-Skip hits here more often than trope does.
(So does the mid-winter anomaly, but that's on AM. Might be the mountain terrain at issue there).
 
I always seem to get some great tropo catches on the northern gulf coast, I frequent the Gulf Shores AL area and almost always have some sort of DX coming in. Panama City, Biloxi, and New Orleans are all easy catches, and often will pick up like locals on a good radio. Best DX I ever got there was Tampas 100.7 traveling across the gulf and completely overpowering the local 100kw 100.7 while I was recording the local.
 
Bongwater said:
Has anyone picked up Cuba or The Bahamas in Florida?
Click to expand...

Get on the Florida Keys and Cuba comes in 24/7. cd637299 (Chris) has heard Cuba all the time from there.

-crainbebo
 
Portland to Vashon Island, just off of Seattle in the Puget sound. I regularly listen to KINK (101.9) KXL (101.1) and KKRZ (100.3) from Portland like they are local, especially KINK. The hot spots are a place called sunrise ridge where I can hear Portland every day of the week and what we call the burton water front. It has terrain shielding from Canada so Portland comes in well there. On a good day I can hear KINK on the north end of the Island. Eugene, Oregon came in good to but I have not tried anything from there in a while.
 
Seemed like Hood Canal was another big spot for Portland Tr. I regularly got 140-mi Portland almost 24/7. Also KPQ 102.1 was 24/7. KFFM was in and out with the Greenwater, WA CSN xlator, I also had KWIQ and KEYG there.

-crainbebo
 
I remember at the Jersey shore during the summer sometimes hearing FM stations from North Carolina during the middle of the day on the car radio.

That was back in the early 80s, so I don't remember the call letters or exact locations.
 
Our family had a small summer cottage in SE CT (Mystic-Stonington). They didn't have cable as it was just a summer home. Like many others used an outside antenna w/ rotor. In July-Aug we had the upper VHF's from NYC clear as a bell from about 120 mi as crow flies at least 1/2 the nites and sometimes all day. It seemed the UHF's from Philly were stronger/more consistent than the NYC ones. On those nights my parents would watch Ch 7 NY rather than Ch 8 New Haven for their ABC fix.
In SW fla I get the Tampa-St Pete UHF's on a 50 cent non amplified RCA indoor antenna from about 60 mi (more than half the time) Nothing during the day. Kinda like a tropo lite. ABC Tampa (28) has much better sound than Ft Myers-Naples on ch 26.
I know there are much stronger paths....
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom