Weird?

Last night I was doing some searching for new frequencies from my new apt.
At my old place I had 2055 hocked up to a 20-176 about 40' in the air and was having major overload problems. I was about a mile from downtown where most transmit towers are located. I would try to pick up 155.565 from about 40 miles away and, it never was going to happen. This held true using the stock ant as well.

Well last night in the new place I was upstairs with the 2055 and the rat shack telescoping antenna sitting in the window. Mind You I am right downtown now and a block from 2 hospitals and 155.565 was clear as day. I dont get it????

Welcome to wonderful world of RF propagation. If you still receiving it then chalk it up to the luck of your new location, if not then it might have been tropo ducting. Ducting is more common in the Spring and Fall but can happen anytime. Best ducting I ever experienced was the night before hurricane Andrew hit, I was able to work a 2M repeater in South Georgia, directly. I was running 175W into a Diamond X-500 on my Apt's roof using the Kenwood TS-790 and Teletec Amp.

Well Bum, you learned something but missed the point. There is no such thing as overload by the wanted frequency, the IF limiters take care of that. It's possible your receiver's front end was being overloaded by something else and you moved away from it.

On the other hand it's possible at the old location something was "blocking" the signal. Actually thinking of it as a wall stopping it cold is incorrect, it's multipath reception caused by a reflection in the signal path. If the reflected signal is delayed by just the right amount it arrives out of phase with the direct signal and they cancel each other out. It's possible you moved away from the reflection or the direct wave, either way there is no cancellation with one missing.

Not exactly propagation Jerri, you misinterpreted what he wrote. His problem was overload or phase cancellation, not interference from propagated signals. BTW, that amp only gives you around 4dB gain, a tad over one half an S unit over the typical 50W rig so you would have gotten into the repeater without it just as well. It may give you a tiny bit of an edge on weak signal SSB but with FM and especially into a repeater in a favorable location it really doesn't matter. Now if you go the W2NCH route and shove a kilowatt FM into a vertical 22el H stack up 90' you can call yourself a big gun. (;->)