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Unexpected DX today

Rusty Muck

Rusty Muck

Driving home from Elyria to Avon, instead of picking up CIDR/93.9 in Detroit... my car radio picked up WMIA/93.9... in Miami!

Weird hearing about traffic on I-95 when I'm on Route 254. o_O

Anyone else have extreme DXing (or just general DX) reports over the past few days?
 
Oh my f-ing god, I can't believe that. There is a name for that? When I was living in suburban Pittsburgh, my radio landed on 101.7 from Jackson, MS. Then I flipped and got "East Texas' best country" I don't remember the frequency for it was two years or more ago but I sat and flipped that day and got about 6 stations from Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas. If somebody could possibly give me the cliffs notes version of why that happens, I would appreciate it. I live in Mercer County, PA and I know some nights I get Cleveland stations but I guess that's not as major as the Miss./Texas ones. But ya I always wondered about that.
 
Oh and in addition, I will never forget one time when I lived in Ashland, for about 4 days I was getting the Detroit lineup on my car radio. These Detroit stations were even overpowering that Mansfield/Cleveland stations. But that was weird cause it was like for 4 days, and they when I get used to WDVD.......back to normal. lol
 
I had DX from the Dallas area today from the Dayton area. (see the DX board). There are two phenomenon at play when you hear stations out of your area. If it's closer in, up to 500 miles, it's tropo, or tropospheric ducting, and is associated with fronts and can be especially strong in a temperature inversion. Hearing Florida, Texas, or Wyominfg from Ohio is known as Sporadic E-skip. THE "E" layer of the ionosphere gets charghed up and reflects VHF signals back to earth. There are more detailed explanations if you search the DX board.
 
I remember one night when I was on vacation, traveling through Nashville, when I was channel surfing on FM and came across a station from Colorado Springs, CO.

Is the tropospheric ducting the same reason why you could pick up distant TV stations back in the analog days? It makes sense that when in the summer, in the mornings & afternoons, you could pick up stations from Detroit & Toledo clear as a bell in the hours before bad storms would hit the North Coast.

I had lived in a high-rise dorm @ the University of Toledo in the 80s, and the conditions were just right one night, I was able to pick up somewhere in the neighborhood of FIFTY UHF/VHF TV stations from a small color TV from the northwest corner of the 11th floor. Only happened once, though.
 
Well, MC, there is a lot to be said here. What you were getting was reflection (OK, refraction, to be exact, but that's a bit esoteric) off the E-layer of the ionosphere, which happens sporadically, usually in the Summer. This phenomenon is suitably called, "sporadic-E." The higher the frequency, the rarer the event.

Getting a path from Pittsburgh to Jackson, MS is very typical of this mode. Paths from -- say -- 700 to 1100 miles are normal here. These events are not really predictable, but follow clear patterns.

Wikipedia has a brief article on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporadic_E For more in-depth information, the article cited at the bottom is a great read.

There are hobbyists who really get off on this, looking for TV and/or FM from far away. They have a club; here's the website: http://www.wtfda.org/ I am a ham, and spend most of my operating time on VHF (50 MHz & 144 MHz); sporadic-E is what I spend much of my Summer waiting for.

Oh, and to answer the original poster, yes... I did see some rather extreme DX that day. Again, I was hanging out on the 144 MHz ham band. And, I had about 20 minutes of an opening from here (Memphis) to the Northeast. This is a treat, as 144 MHz doesn't see sporadic-E very often at all.

Enjoy,

DE
 
Thanks, Dead Elvis, and ya and it something how it used to be with that TV. From Medina, before during and after storms I used to get the Toledo and Detroit TV and radio stations and even some Canada, and oddly enough some mornings especially, I used to get TV and radio from Columbus and Steubenville/Wheeling. And then when I was living in suburban Pittsburgh on those stormy summer nights, I found that I was getting in FM stations from Cleveland, Akron, Erie and sometimes even Toledo. And I was getting TV channels too in fact WOIO 19 from Cleveland and WNPA 19 (at the time I think its something else now) we're like fighting for the same spot. lol I'd flip through once and get 19 action news and flip back and get whatever was on UPN. lol I also has WJW 8 fighting with WWCP 8 from Johnstown. I miss analog TV.
 
Well, MC...

That's a different mechanism. What you're describing there is bending through the troposphere. This happens when temperature inversions happen close to the surface. Again, there is a lot here. The Wikipedia article is actually pretty good (and fairly easy to understand):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_propagation

Generally speaking, if UHF is involved, it's the troposphere at work.

DE
 
Back when WCLV was at 95.5, we were short spaced with what is now WKQI (100 kw at 437 ft) in Detroit, and when a temperature inversion would come through, they would override our signal. I remember driving on I 480 in sight of our tower and suddenly I started hearing Detroit commercials. The only compensation was that we often did the same thing to them. We once got a call from their Chief Engineer asking if we had increased power because he was a block away from his tower with 100,000 watts and was listening to us, instead of his signal.

Robert Conrad WCLV
 
There are two phenomena that are being referenced. One is tropospheric ducting or troposcatter where the signals essentially bounce off the troposphere. The distance on these skips are generally 300 miles or less. If you're in Cleveland and hearing stations from, say, Detroit, Toledo, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, etc, that's tropo. The other (which would have been responsible for a signal coming in from Miami is e-skip where the signal reflects off of the e-layer in the ionosphere. This is basically the same phenomenon that causes AM signals to skip at night, but at FM (or TV) frequencies it happens but is somewhat of a rarity and when it happens it generally lasts for less than a half hour. The most common range for e-skip is 500-800 miles but, just as with AM, greater distances are possible. My farthest FM reception from Cleveland was Gillette, WY... roughly 1400 miles.
 
I had another outstanding DX today. From where I live at in Greenville, PA (75 mi. east south east of Cleveland). I picked up 97.9 the box KBXX from Houston, 95.7 KKAJ from Ardmore, OK, 95.5 KWEN from Tulsa, OK, Power 89.7 KVRK from Dallas. I was amazed at the distance this is by far the furthest I've gotten out. Of the stations I found I got 2 from Oklahoma, 2 from Arkansas, 2 from DFW, Texas and the one from Houston. Hell of a storm. lol
 
During tropo i've DX'ed texas stations.. here near Columbus a few years ago I heard KGNZ from Texas. I've also DX'ed WayFM from Nashville while south of columbus.
 
Gotcha all beat. On Memorial Day, 1956, I was visiting family with my Mom and Dad in Tallmadge. On a relatively normal TV with outdoor antenna, picked up a solid test pattern w/music on Channel 2 (nearest station was Pittsburgh) from (then) CMA-TV, Telemundo, Habana, Cuba at full quieting -- quite a shock for not only the 10-year old nephew (me) but for my Aunt and Uncle who owned the set. My Mom and Dad scratched their heads like they kinda expected it outta me. Ole!
 
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