Tropo/Sporadic E in the west.

[dxstuboy]

Last summer while driving home from about the Utah border to around Lyman, Wyoming, I was picking up some stations that normally would never be audible. This is a phenomenon known as sporadic E, I'm sure most of you know what it is. The farthest station I got was from Michigan. This was on 94.9, which is Z-rock here.

What I worry about is if this phenomenon can be heard in the Salt Lake area. I read somewhere that the mountains might block any sort of skips from coming in. I sure hope this isn't true.

Also, I worry that since the Salt Lake area's FM market is really crowded, there might not be any chance at all to hear stations from far away, given all of the adjacent clutter from locals.

I've only heard E-skip and tropo three times in my life (and that was a few weeks ago, last summer and the previous summer, all in Wyoming) and I sure hope that being here this summer won't exclude me from another chance.

Has anybody from this area ever heard stations that normally wouldn't come in?

[seattlefollower]

I have in E. Idaho, which, arguably is as mountainous and almost as over-signaled.

[CAwasinNJ]

I don't think the mountains are going to be a big factor unless you're pretty close to the base, and then only in that direction. The easiest way to visualize it is to remember the rule of physics that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Think about what happens with a basketball when you shoot a bounce pass. The angle the ball goes at before the bounce equals the angle it will rise up at on the other side. Radiation works the same way. Figure out where the halfway point between you and whatever might get a signal to you. Then figure out the angle to that point from the E layer. If you can see that point, you're ok.

[dxstuboy]

So simply put, we might get lucky this summer in this area for some tropo and/or sporadic E then. I don't live at the base of the mountains, I live closer to I-15 in South Salt Lake, practically dead center in the SL valley.