Anyone else notice skips?

[retro-man]

Tuesday evening I was listening to the radio and had on 103.3 which is an oldies station based out of boston and serves a lot of the new england area. During one of the songs the station faded away and another song started playing. I think the call letters were WGLM which I think is out of Indiana. They were announcing the time and they were an hour behind us. Now I live in NH and not that far from the time zone that starts this area. That signal had to travel a great distance to get here. This is unusual for fm signals to travel that far. Was wondering anyone else been getting skips lately?
Jon

 

[rp2813]

I have never experienced this sort of thing with FM radio. AM is another story. In the mountains of California one long ago summer I was able to pull in WLS out of Chicago. In January of 1982 when California experienced its first "El Nino" incident that killed so many via mudslides, I was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I was able to pull in SF station KCBS on a little transistor radio to get the news from home.

I'd be interested in hearing how something like this can happen with FM broadcasts.

Ralph

 

[maytagbear]

I am certainly NOT a scientist--

but I would imagine that this is sunspot or related solar activity?

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[rp2813]

I was going to mention a solar flare but usually we get warned on those ahead of time, especially now with the entire world talking, surfing and twitting via satellites instead of land lines. But that was my first guess too.

Ralph

 

[mattl]

I remember years ago watching a telivion station from
Florida and I live 70 miles north of Detroit. It overpowered Detroit's channel 2, mid day for a good half hour.

 

[chuffle]

I had the same thing happen last week...

I was listening to my local public radio station from central Pennsylvania, when I began to hear an echo of the words being spoken. My local station then drifted out, and the second station came through loud and clear, and was on long enough so that I was able to identify it as a public radio station from Georgia.

I sent Georgia Public Radio an e-mail about this the evening that it happened, and yesterday, I received this reply from one of their engineers:

"It does happen. With FM this would not normally happen but a condition called tunneling can take a signal a very long way. Ham (Amateur Radio ) operators try to pick these up all of the time when they think conditions are right. They call it DXing. I have a verified report of one of our TV stations being picked up in Northern New York.

Thank for dropping the note on this though.

Have a good 4th.
Jack Watts
Engineering"

Interesting to hear that this has happened elsewhere.

Joe

 

[retro-man]

Interesting that this is happening in other parts of the country. I know when we would spend the summers at the coast in NH back in the late 70's we would pick up tv channels from Miami during sun spot activity. Strange thing about the fm is down the street from my house which you have to go this way to get in and out of my development, you hit a spot where this station fades out completely and the other is trying to come in. I think I have a portal in my neighborhood. Strange happenings.
Jon

 

[Unimatic1140]

DX'ing

Wow, I used to love to DX (long-distance listening) AM radio when I was kid. From my bedroom in New Jersey I could easily pick up WBBM, WMAQ and WLS in Chicago. On good nights I could pick Des Moines, Minneapolis, Omaha, Kansas City, Atlanta, Toronto. For what ever reason you could only DX on the AM band after sunset. I also tried to DX with my little bw TV set, but since we lived in NJ between New York City and Philadelphia all channels on VHF except for channel 8 had a local station on broadcasted on it. Sometimes I could get channel 8 from New Haven, but the conditions had to be just right. I find it just amazing Jon to hear that you once picked up Miami television on the coast of New Hampshire!!

I wonder if the transition to digital television is making a difference on the FM band recently? I also wonder if there is a way to forecast when the skips will be most prevalent?

 

[rp2813]

Yeah, after dark has always been the best time for DX reception. Wolfman Jack used to be broadcast on XERB out of Rosarito, Baja California and came in loud & clear, but only at night. I don't recall the explanation for why this is possible only after the sun goes down, but for this same reason, many of the more powerful AM stations will turn down their wattage after dark since it takes less energy for the signal to travel the same distance it would during the day.

But all of this happening with FM and TV signals is new to me. It's always been an AM phenomenon in my experience.

Ralph

 

[hydralique]

AM radio waves tend to reflect or bounce off part of the atmosphere which is why they can travel lots farther than FM waves, which don't normally bounce. Atmospheric conditions change at night and make the AM waves bounce more strongly. TV is pretty similar to FM, and doesn't bounce much either.