[Scan-DC] E-Skip Tonight?

[Dan Brown]

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 b_thom at juno.com wrote:

> As a proud member of the cheapskate-American community, I do not have
> cable TV. If I can't see TV with the rabbit ears, then it's just not
> worth watching.
> 
> Tonight about 7:30 p.m., I noticed interference on channel 2, 54-60 MHz;
> and channel 3, 60-66 MHz. From my monitoring bunker in northern Virginia,
> I receive channel 2 in Baltimore, WMAR all the time, though not too well.
> Channel 3 does not ordinarily come in at all. When it does, I think it's
> KYW in Philadelphia. I tried some other channels to see if I could get TV
> stations in Richmond and Norfolk, which also come in (poorly) when the
> atmospherics are weird. I saw nothing.
> 
> I believe this is an example of the propagation phenomenon called E-skip.
> The Wikipedia entry on TV and FM DX supports my belief.

Yes, it is.  E's have been going on all afternoon.  There's a ham VHF
contest this weekend on 6m (50mhz) and 2m (144mhz) and things are
hopping. Check reports here: http://dxworld.com/50prop.html

Earlier this evening, I heard a guy in "grid square" DN05 - which is out in
Oregon, Likely "double hop E's" on about 50.137 upper sideband.  Have heard
Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, lots of Florida, etc.  Just worked a guy in
EM90, which is north Florida. 

For an explanation of gridsquares: 

http://www.arrl.org/locate/gridinfo.html

Good PDF map of grids here: 

http://www.icomamerica.com/downloads/usgridsq.pdf


--
Dan Brown 
brown at brauhausdc.org