decent conditions

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EJB

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Sitting outside on my balcony facing with north and south exposure. Getting clearer than normal signals on Fleetnet. Not a bad day for a drive to do some Fleetnet DXing :)
 

Nap

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lol, Fleetnet is loud and clear even in my basement.... :)

What's really fantastic these days is shortwave, I can get European amateurs with nothing but a handheld Icom R-20 with stock antenna... the other day there was a guy in Virginia talking to someone in Spain on 7 MHz, they both sounded like they were transmitting from my backyard...
 

Nap

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I have no idea what is causing it, anyway right now you can tune into about anything around the globe, the local amateurs went bonkers and completely deserted the repeaters and are now furiously "CQ DX"-ing on shortwave.
 

unlisted

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I was easily pulling in York 800 mhz system (4/5 strength) from Niagara Falls last night, inside a building on a portable scanner.

Same RX in my car driving home with the same scanner, but the signal got worse the closer I got (thanks Hamilton!), and than went back to "normal" when I hit Peel region.
 

markab

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Atmospheric conditions

It's my understanding that atmospheric conditions do little to affect frequencies <30mhz. Prehaps your improved reception was a result of something else?

Mark
 

Nap

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Interesting that it happened on all frequencies.

VHF/UHF (what we get on scanners) extended propagation is usually explained by "tropospheric ducting" which may be produced by thermal inversions.

HF as good as I heard has to be a combination of low absorption in the D layer and strong ionization in the F layers.

Very nice while it lasts.
 

Nap

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Lol.

According to Solar Terrestrial Activity Report there was a spike in sun spot number and solar flux on 20-21 Oct.

Then SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids reported "A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth on Oct. 24th at approximately 1800 UT (2:00 pm EDT). The impact strongly compressed Earth's magnetic field, directly exposing geosynchronous satellites to solar wind plasma, and sparked an intense geomagnetic storm. As night fell over North America, auroras spilled across the Canadian border into the contiguous United States."

Also weather was interesting here on Friday - Sat - Sun, it was warm first then it froze at ground level, it's possible that we had for a time a thin layer of warmer air at some altitude and it created the conditions for "tropospheric ducting" that enhanced reception for scanner VHF/UHF frequencies.
 

Nap

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Mhhh now I'm seriously pondering a digital D-star rig. Just to annoy the guys with scanners lol.
 

radioskip1

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Re: decent conditions: As mentioned in previous posts the propagation for many of the amateur radio bands has been spectacular for the past couple of weeks. I guess I'm lucky because I find any type of radio receiver that pulls sounds out of the sky truly fascinating. Checkout the York Region Amateur Radio Club's hamfest in Markham on Nov. 5th. You'll find lots of old shortwave radios for sale including scanners and tons of other bits and pieces.
 

Nap

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Fixed your quote for ya. ;)

P-25 works wonders I've been told..

(and if that does not work, turn on ENC with P-25....) :D

LOL.

Rumors has it that the French declared D-Star illegal. Maybe we should do something about P-25 too. ;-)
 
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