30-50 Mhz VHF Low band Skip

[FrankJ]

Anybody have any idea when conditions will be good for long distance skip on this band? I live in Ohio and used to hear a lots of skip on the West Coast (sometimes CHP on 42 Mhz). I haven't hear anything in over a year!

Frank

 

[sony]

Anybody have any idea when conditions will be good for long distance skip on this band? I live in Ohio and used to hear a lots of skip on the West Coast (sometimes CHP on 42 Mhz). I haven't hear anything in over a year!

Frank

I am here in the Republik of Kalifornia and used to pick up troopers from the east coast and you can clearly hear the accents from that part of the country. Here it is the California Highway Patrol do you pick them up from where you are at?

 

[nd5y]

Late spring to early summer is the peak time for sporadic E skip. Otherwise you can wait another 5 years or so until the peak of the next sunspot cycle for low band F2 openings.

 

[kb2vxa]

Hi Frank and all,

In the Northern Hemisphere June is the peak for E skip and a lessaer peak is December. Summer is generally good overall because the sun is over the hemisphere, notice I didn't say which, you know summer and winter are reversed depending on which one you live in. It's the same (except for December) for tropo on VHF Hi and UHF, around here it peaks in July and August when temperature inversions are common.

Speaking of F2 openings, at the last sunspot peak the MUF went up around 60MHz a few times and I made quite a few 6M DX contacts in Europe and one fantastic one in the southern tip of Argentina. I couldn't bust the pileup trying to work Algiers though. Last year was an odd one, I heard my friend Arnie CO2KK in Havana calling CQ and couldn't get back, nobody answered him but me. Another even MORE strange was Hawaii and the same thing happened. I say STRANGE because while it's easy for Californians, even hearing a KH7 on the East Coast is a once in a lifetime experience.

 

[Randall]

i am getting reports that solar activity is increasing today with a large sunspot and other abnormalities being studied. www.spaceweather.com

 

[Al42]

i am getting reports that solar activity is increasing today with a large sunspot and other abnormalities being studied.

Increasing yes, but an increase over a small number is still a small number. It's getting better (we're on the upswing), but it's still pretty bad. Look at the graph at http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/sunspotnumber.html - pay attention to 1957-1958 - that's the big peak over on the right, the highest numbers ever seen. We have a LONG way to go to get aywhere near that kind of activity. (We're slightly over 50 now - the peak was near 200 - every day. And that's a lot more than just 4 times the radio effect.)

 

[SLWilson]

Skip

Anybody have any idea when conditions will be good for long distance skip on this band? I live in Ohio and used to hear a lots of skip on the West Coast (sometimes CHP on 42 Mhz). I haven't hear anything in over a year! Frank

In SE Ohio, we used to listen to "Western" states in early summer. In the fall, we'd listen to New York and New Jersey....

Mid winter, we got the Mexican traffic. Couldn't understand a bit of it!!!!

However, that was when EVERYONE around here was on low band. We used 39.58 and 39.62 without PL. The skip was TERRIBLE. But, when they were having a storm in Kansas, we KNEW it and could TALK to them!!!

We have all moved to UHF or VHF-Hi now, with the exception of the Gallipolis FD. They (WZM868) are still on low band, but, they DID add PL to it....

Steve/Gallia

 

[Hoofy]

Here's a website for e-skip predictions. Some hams rely on this for 6 meter band propogation (50 mhz band).

http://home.cogeco.ca/~dxinfo/tropo.html

 

[n2ops]

Low Band Skip Links

LOW BAND LINKS

APCO
http://www.apco911.org/frequency/documents/LowBandChannelsListbyState_000.pdf

MUF
http://www.spacew.com/www/realtime.php

Early Warning Frequencies
http://www.geocities.com/toddemslie/50MHz_Early_Warning_Database.htm

Low Band Military Frequencies
http://www.siscom.net/~mmeece/military.html#TOP

Sunspot Forecast
http://www.physorg.com/news11434.html

CHP
http://www.bncantenna.com/chipsby.htm
http://www.freqofnature.com/frequencies/ca/chp.html

Cuban Low Band Skip
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vhfskip/message/394

Real Time Propagation Maps
http://www.vhfdx.net/mufmap.html#USAFoF2

Low VHF DX
http://www.geocities.com/yogi540/lowvhfdx.html

FM & TV DX
http://www.geocities.com/yogi540/fmtvdx.html

Low Band Skip Links
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vhfskip/message/2123

Low Band Across the Pond
http://www.uksmg.org/monitor.htm

National Parks
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/9952/nps.htm

European Low Band Plans
http://www.grove-ent.com/mteuro.html

Weather Radio Skip Info
http://www.weatherradio.info/

William Hepburns TV & Radio DX Information Centre
http://home.cogeco.ca/~dxinfo/

Yahoo VHF Skip
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vhfskip/database?method=reportRows&tbl=1

 

[illini52]

Low Band rullllllles!!!

 

[kb2vxa]

Never mind the sunspots, they affect the F layer and have little to do with forming ionized clouds in the E layer. That's mostly the result of UV which is why it's more common in summer.

We recently observed an SME which killed HF propagation yesterday, 40M was dead and signals on 20M were weak and the whole spectrum was noisy. That's quite a contrast, for the past week DX was hot and the background noise low.

Yeah, "low band" rules especially when you have a license to transmit. (;->)

 

[mancow]

In SE Ohio, we used to listen to "Western" states in early summer. In the fall, we'd listen to New York and New Jersey....

Mid winter, we got the Mexican traffic. Couldn't understand a bit of it!!!!

However, that was when EVERYONE around here was on low band. We used 39.58 and 39.62 without PL. The skip was TERRIBLE. But, when they were having a storm in Kansas, we KNEW it and could TALK to them!!!

We have all moved to UHF or VHF-Hi now, with the exception of the Gallipolis FD. They (WZM868) are still on low band, but, they DID add PL to it....

Steve/Gallia

I used to hear all about that from dispatchers that were around when we used 39.50 in Kansas. It's still available in alot of dispatch centers around here but nobody uses it.

 

[n2ops]

Skip Forum?

How about a skip forum? We could share lot's of ideas, reports, links etc.

I'd be glad to moderate it.

Thanks.