Must Have been a Skip Wave

[TexasBigEars]

While scanning local counties early this morning, I picked up a police/ems call in Brownwood, Texas. An elderly man had trouble breathing. This is some 460 miles away from my location. My antenna is 30 feet in the air...I did a double-take when I heard the location and address...I went and Googled the info and, sure enough, it was Brownwood, Texas. I am impressed. Has this happened to anybody else recently?

Bill

[texasemt13]

That's a pretty good distance, VHF skip has been great lately.

Propagation over the last few days, especially in the higher frequency HF bands has been pretty decent lately...

[bigwrigg]

I have picked up Houston FD in Dallas, TX. Thats agout 250 miles.

[TexasBigEars]

I'm doin a lil experment with the Dallas area (that which is still analog) just to see if I can pick up any squawk at all; conversely, I have radiated out 3 counties from my current county, all around the dial just to see if I can pick them up. Doing very well here in Shelby County :-) !!! I've also put a classified ad out to see if anybody has a digital scanner for sale that isn't being used. Checking the auctions here too. Ya all have a great day!!!

Bill

[texasemt13]

Originally Posted by TexasBigEars

I've also put a classified ad out to see if anybody has a digital scanner for sale that isn't being used. Checking the auctions here too.

Bill

Then you'll be able to hear digital skip! From New Braunfels, Texas, I've heard DPS Laredo, Texas City, Corpus Christi, Wichita Falls, Del Rio, Ozona, Pierce, Bryan, Tyler and McAllen.

Mornings and evenings are great for skip. I find that mornings that are hazy, or moisture rich (not quite fog rich or drizzly, but hazy grey), are better than perfectly clear mornings. There are some interesting studies being done (mostly by RSGB) about grey-line propagation. While this term mostly applies to the HF bands, propagation in the VHF and VHF-Hi bands are definitely affected along grey line paths..

[loumaag]

Don't forget to look at the following link for predicted ducting:
Tropospheric Ducting Forecast for VHF & UHF Radio & TV

[louisiana_jeeper]

A number of years back I was working 432 mhz ham band regular on simplex channels and almost every night had a regular group between me and several guys in Houston. This went on for some time and was not conditions. I live in Natchitoches La and very frequently made contacts with stations in the Corpus area also.

[mfn002]

I have an interesting story about skip. Many years ago, I was playing with a NOAA WeatherRadio and somehow managed to pick up the Midland station. More recently, I was picking up Corpus Christi and even Brownsville. Also, on another occassion, I picked up an FM station from St. Charles, La. I remember one particular occassion of intense skip where I picked up someone saying, "10-4, Las Vegas" on 155.940. In that same event, I picked up one frequency where someone was saying, "White Hall to XXXXX". It drives me nuts to this day as to what--or where--White Hall is.

[texasemt13]

Well there is a Whitehall, Texas, an unincorporated community in Grimes County, but I don't think they have any LEOs except Grimes SO. But, there's also another unincorporated town of White Hall, in Bell County.

There is also a White Hall, AR. Or is that Whitehall, MI? Or Whitehall, OH? Or Whitehall, WI?

I don't see why that's so confusing or hard to figure out *(removing tongue from cheek)*

[mfn002]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2.1; en-us; Vortex Build/FRG83) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

This was a few (2003) years ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy, but it might have been, if I recall correctly, either that or South Hall. What threw me off at the time was that it sounded sort of like a DPS channel.