WBT-FM...boy, that's some signal!

[yugoidar]

A post from the Northern New England Board...

"Last Thursday, driving on the John Stark Hwy. between Newport and Claremont, New Hampshire.

I was listening to 99.3 WFRD out of Hanover, when all of a sudden, it dropped out entirely, and was replaced for at least a half a mile by WBT.

I got home and looked up where WBT was broadcasting from............Chesterfield, South Carolina!!!!!

I thought I was going crazy, until, sure enough, saw that WBT-FM broadcasts at 99.3.

I have heard of AM signals going to the ends of the earth....but FM???

Was this an anomaly? Or am I sniffing glue again?"

Maybe one of you engineering types can explain it to this poor fellow. I know it happens from time to time, I've experienced it, but it's beyond my ability to fill him in.

 

[fortmill]

WBT-FM broadcasts from CHESTER, not Chesterfield SC and simucasts right-wing hatetalker WBT-AM 1110 in Charlotte. Ironically, it would not have been the slightest bit unusual for you to have picked up WBT-AM in New England at night as it is a 50,000 watt blowtorch, similar to WBZ-AM, well-known to cover the entire East Coast at night. However, the purpose of WBT-FM 99.3 is to cover the western part of the Charlotte radio market at night. WBT-AM has no signal there at night due to it's directional signal. You recieved WBT-FM due to "e-skip." Basically, the signal bounced off clouds, maybe more than once, to reach your location. It is not an unusual condition in the summer, especally here in the southeast. Actually, WBT-FM is one of the weakest FM signals in the Charlotte region. Many FMs here are 100,000 watters on 2000 ft. towers. If you had polked around your FM dial a little further, you have found additional Charlotte FMs on your radio dial!

 

[yugoidar]

Hey Fort, did you post this on the Northern New England board in response to the QUOTE from that board I posted above?  You might want to answer the actual poster's message there since he may not read this board.

 

[DanStrassberg]

You recieved WBT-FM due to "e-skip." Basically, the signal bounced off clouds, maybe more than once, to reach your location. It is not an unusual condition in the summer, especally here in the southeast.

Isn't the proper name for the phenomenon tropospheric ducting (or trops for short)? I think so. This has nothing to do with clouds but rather is related to thermal inversions that are commonplace in coastal areas during warm humid summer weather. As the word "ducting" implies, the phenomenon creates a "duct" that enables VHF signals to follow the curvature of the earth for long distances, rather than continuing in straight lines that carry it off into outer space as in normal at VHF frequencies.

 

[Play Freebird]

Isn't the proper name for the phenomenon tropospheric ducting (or trops for short)? I think so. This has nothing to do with clouds but rather is related to thermal inversions that are commonplace in coastal areas during warm humid summer weather. As the word "ducting" implies, the phenomenon creates a "duct" that enables VHF signals to follow the curvature of the earth for long distances, rather than continuing in straight lines that carry it off into outer space as in normal at VHF frequencies.

At that distance, this sounds to me more like single-hop sporadic-E. The reference to "clouds" has nothing to do with water droplets, but is just commonly-used slang for an ionized patch that reflects VHF signals. For example, the term "Sporadic E cloud" is used in the following article:

http://www.fmdx.info/index.php?id=sporadic_e

 

[pqgeorge]

You recieved WBT-FM due to "e-skip." Basically, the signal bounced off clouds, maybe more than once, to reach your location. It is not an unusual condition in the summer, especally here in the southeast.

Isn't the proper name for the phenomenon tropospheric ducting (or trops for short)? I think so. This has nothing to do with clouds but rather is related to thermal inversions that are commonplace in coastal areas during warm humid summer weather. As the word "ducting" implies, the phenomenon creates a "duct" that enables VHF signals to follow the curvature of the earth for long distances, rather than continuing in straight lines that carry it off into outer space as in normal at VHF frequencies.

Hi Dan:
I think "yugoidar" was talking about the so-called "E-skip clouds", little patches of charged ionized particles that occur in the ionosphere from time to time that make e-skip possible. Recently, there have been quite a few "short" skips from the Tidewater and the Carolinas that definitely were not tropo. I've see this happen before, myself. I've actually got WBTV/Channel 3 from Charlotte (WBT's former sister station) here in the Boston area during e-skip openings in perfect color during some brief skip openings. Generally, e-skip occurs in an area located 500-1500 miles from the originating station. There are exceptions such as "double-hop" skip that Jeff Lehmann has received and recorded.
In any event, congratulations to "yugoidar" in getting that Class A in North Carolina. I'd send a QSL request! I think they'd enjoy it! 73.


Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts

 

[DanStrassberg]

I think "yugoidar" was talking about the so-called "E-skip clouds", little patches of charged ionized particles that occur in the ionosphere from time to time that make e-skip possible. Recently, there have been quite a few "short" skips from the Tidewater and the Carolinas that definitely were not tropo. I've see this happen before, myself. I've actually got WBTV/Channel 3 from Charlotte (WBT's former sister station) here in the Boston area during e-skip openings in perfect color during some brief skip openings. Generally, e-skip occurs in an area located 500-1500 miles from the originating station.

Hmm, Peter: My first experience with long-distance FM reception took place about 60 years ago, and once I heard the term tropospheric ducting and experienced it many times at much shorter distances, I just assumed that I had experienced the same kind of phenomenon back in the early fall of 1948 in the northwest Bronx.

For some reason I was not in school that day. Might have been Rosh Hashana. But it was a bright, sunny day--unusually humid and warm for October. I was listening to my new RCA AM-FM radio, which my folks had given me for my 13th birthday several months earlier. For a stretch of about four hours, I received a bunch of FMs from a roughly elliptical geographic area covering parts of VA, eastern and central NC, and maybe extending as far as north GA. Remember, this was 1948; there were probably no more than a few hundred FMs in the entire US. As the four hours progressed, the reception became clearer and the stations I picked up extended over a longer area (that is, the major axis of the ellipse became longer). Then, as the period drew to a close, the reception deteriorated and the area from which the stations came collapsed, disappearing entirely well before sunset. At the moment, I can recall the call letters of only one of the distant stations I had received: WCBT-FM Roanoke Rapids NC. The station was owned by Citizens' Bank and Trust. I might remember some others if I keep thinking about it.

Now, the funny thing about this memory is that, in my mind's eye, I see the location as my parents "new" apartment, where they didn't move until I was in grad school, almost 10 years after 1948. The building was not constructed until 1957. By then, I think the RCA radio was dead, having been replaced by a Zenith, which I got in 1952 when I went away to college.

 

[charlestondxman]

Wow, great story! Now, there are so many FMs that you have to go through to pick up anything, but the big signals were important in serving a large area. You probably picked up WMIT from Black Mountain, as that station had lots of power at that time.

 

[pqgeorge]

I think "yugoidar" was talking about the so-called "E-skip clouds", little patches of charged ionized particles that occur in the ionosphere from time to time that make e-skip possible. Recently, there have been quite a few "short" skips from the Tidewater and the Carolinas that definitely were not tropo. I've see this happen before, myself. I've actually got WBTV/Channel 3 from Charlotte (WBT's former sister station) here in the Boston area during e-skip openings in perfect color during some brief skip openings. Generally, e-skip occurs in an area located 500-1500 miles from the originating station.

Hmm, Peter: My first experience with long-distance FM reception took place about 60 years ago, and once I heard the term tropospheric ducting and experienced it many times at much shorter distances, I just assumed that I had experienced the same kind of phenomenon back in the early fall of 1948 in the northwest Bronx.

For some reason I was not in school that day. Might have been Rosh Hashana. But it was a bright, sunny day--unusually humid and warm for October. I was listening to my new RCA AM-FM radio, which my folks had given me for my 13th birthday several months earlier. For a stretch of about four hours, I received a bunch of FMs from a roughly elliptical geographic area covering parts of VA, eastern and central NC, and maybe extending as far as north GA. Remember, this was 1948; there were probably no more than a few hundred FMs in the entire US. As the four hours progressed, the reception became clearer and the stations I picked up extended over a longer area (that is, the major axis of the ellipse became longer). Then, as the period drew to a close, the reception deteriorated and the area from which the stations came collapsed, disappearing entirely well before sunset. At the moment, I can recall the call letters of only one of the distant stations I had received: WCBT-FM Roanoke Rapids NC. The station was owned by Citizens' Bank and Trust. I might remember some others if I keep thinking about it.

Now, the funny thing about this memory is that, in my mind's eye, I see the location as my parents "new" apartment, where they didn't move until I was in grad school, almost 10 years after 1948. The building was not constructed until 1957. By then, I think the RCA radio was dead, having been replaced by a Zenith, which I got in 1952 when I went away to college.

It is truly amazing the stories of people getting stations that normally almost never make it to some really out of the way places. If Rosh Hashana was around early October that year, more than likely it was an extended tropo condition along the coast that you were experiencing at the time. October has cooler nights and comfortable (warm) days. That can enhance trops. I've gotten trops from South Carolina and Eastern Canada (NS, NB, PEI and Nfld.) on openings at that time of the year. You can tell if it is e-skip or trops. E-skip is very fluctuating and usually brief with one or a few stations battling it out for a brief time (almost local quality) for a few minutes. Trops are longer in duration and can provide actual listening or TV viewing from afar for longer periods of time but usually the signals are comparatively weaker. This reception of WBT-FM was more than likely e-skip. Where he picked up WBT is very inland from the coast (about 100-150 miles from the coast). Also, if WBT-FM was overriding the local from nearly 800 miles away of the local, that itself would be an indication of an e-skip opening.

I've actual gotten some certain stations using e-skip, trops, meteor scatter and airline scatter. One station in particular is WYFI/99.7 in Norfolk, VA. It's just far enough away to make all kinds of propagation possible.

Good to hear from you, Dan. 73.

-Pete

 

[RadioDze]

Last Thursday, in Durham, NC (around 7:30-8pm EDT), there was lots of e-skip from Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, not very far from New Hampshire. In theory, e-skip is supposed to be reciprocal.