it's Tropo / E-skip season. Anyone heard anything?

[drpepper]

For anyone not in the metro, have you heard any distant signals?
I loved this time of year for many reasons, Tropo being one of them.
In Idaho, I could at different times pick up stations from all around the country. Those are recordings I wish i'd made. Stations from different parts of Texas, Oklahoma City, Wichita KS, St. louis, Madison Wisconsin, Minneapolis, and other places inbetween.
The stations from the southwest were most common, but like clockwork, around mid june I could get those upper midwest signals. The lower midwest signals were less predictable and seemed the least frequent.
Last time I got to experience this was 3 years ago. I was driving with my Girlfriend at the time. We were near the Bear River Bird refuge. I randomly turned on the radio, heard a couple stations on frequencies that were otherwise vacant. After verifying they weren't translators for CVRG, I yelled: we need to head north! after a few miles i got the death stare and thought she would kill me at any moment. To say she was annoyed would be a huge understatement haha.
If not this year, when is the last time you heard some far away FM signal?

[kenglish]

I'm in the metro (Midvale), but I'm hoping to get some time to play soon.
I need to get the antenna hooked up and play with some amps and filters.
I have tunable filters and phasing boxes for FM, so I want to see if I can peek around the local stations, and hear some DX.
Last time I had real FM DX was years ago, before all the drop-in's, translators and LPFM's.

[drpepper]

Yeah makes sense.
that'd be awesome if you are able to pull anything in, sounds like you've got quite the setup. Even with all the IBOC, have you ever managed to get anything from say 95.1-95.7? Seems like that and maybe a couple other freqs here and there is probably the best spot to catch anything would you agree?

[CAwasinNJ]

K237FG (95.3) is in that range.

[drpepper]

True, though it could be overpowered by anything that did manage to be heard in the metro, seems like it doesn't have nearly the reception it used to when it signed on.
it seems like it would be impressive to hear anything in the metro as packed as the dial is.

[David]

I heard a few stations via E skip at the low end of the FM band around the end of May, but not much DX since then. The three stations I was able to ID were KYFW 88.3 in Wichita, KTBT 92.1 in Tulsa, and KARF 91.5 in Independence, MO. KYFW was the strongest of the three stations I was able to ID, and it even wiped out KCPW for about a minute or two! I'm a member of the Facebook group "FM DX Watchdogs", and there's been several recent (within the past two weeks) reports of Now 97.9 (KBZN) being heard in Escabana, MI and Minneapolis, and 93.3 KUBL was also heard in Escabana. 103.1 The Wave was heard by a DX'er in Edinburgh, IN this week as well. I think it's really interesting to read reports of our local AM & FM stations being heard in the Midwest! WCCO 830 used to be pretty easy to hear in Ogden at night in the late 1980's and early 1990's, but these days it's usually covered up by KLAA. KSTP 1500 is easier to hear at my location, but only when my local "pest" KOGN 1490 is either off the air or broadcasting an open carrier.

[kenglish]

After weeks of cleaning, today I found the really good Micro-Circuits RF amps that I bought years ago. They were in a box, under a bunch of dust.
Also, found the FM Notch Filters and the VHF Delay Lines...they were in the box that I forgot they were in (labelled "TV/FM DX Stuff"). Duh😳
Maybe I'll hear something this week. Or, wait eleven more years.