DXing the FM Band
Jammin_Jay said:
Hey Kansas, just like u to know, that up here in Ontario, Canada, your fm stations have come in so strong on saturday evening, that for a few minutes they took over our area stations, Skip was strong and interesting. Heard call letters "kyys" . logged at 5:30 pm. Skip came in from 4:45 to 6:00 pm, very interesting.
Just wondering if ths skip works like a tunnel effect, and u would be able to pick up stations down there from Canada at the same time. Our call letters all start with "c" up here such as ckkl
Yes, it actually does work that way sometimes! In the FM band and above, the signal doesn't "skip" in the sense you would think about like with CB or Ham Radio. Those signals bounce off different layers of the ionesphere to travel long distances. (with as little as 25 watts while mobile on the 10 meter band, 28-30mhz, I've talked all over the world.)
The higher frequencies use what is called "tropospheric ducting." This is caused by a layer of cooler air trapped between two layers of warmer air (or sometimes visa-versa) Depending on the size of the "duct" and the length, I have heard ducting occur all the way up into the UHF bands and I understand it is possible to occur even at much higher frequencies.
Several of my friends and I used to have fun in the late evening or early morning in the spring and summer trying to see what different 2 meter repeaters we could hit. My personal best was a 2 meter repeater in Minneapolis MN from Wichita, KS, a distance of about 700 miles. I have even watched a TV station out of Longview Texas for almost an hour from North of Wichita, a distance of about 500 miles.
If you were hearing KYYS in Ontario, that is over 1000 miles. None to shabby. You should send them a "QSL" card. That is a post card that outlines the date, time, frequency, and location of the contact and see if they will send something back to you. Address it to the Chief Engineer. A lot of stations have nice little "QSL" cards to send back for long distance contacts like that. Here's their mailing address from their website.
KYYS Radio
Attn: Chief Engineer
4935 Belinder Road
Westwood, KS 66205