Ham Radio DX on VHF Repeater!

[eriepascannist]

I live here in far western NY. A nearby county, Erie PA, holds a weekly ARES/RACES/Skywarn net each Sunday night at 9 pm on a network of linked repeaters, one being 146.82 Mhz W3GV in Waterford, PA with a PL of 186.2.

Last Sunday when I tuned into this repeater a little early for the net, I heard scratchy but audible and readible singnals on the '82 repeater. After listening for a while, I realized I was hearing the net control station for the Williams county, OH Sunday emergency net!
That county is some 300 miles from my location!

I could hear some signals from that net, but not all. The ones I could hear were steady, leading me to believe that these signals were going into the repeater, not the repeater's output. The repeater used for that net is also 146.82, and after a little research I think it is the KA8OFE repeater in Bryan, OH.

How is it possible for these signals to key up my local repeater if they don't have the same PL tone? Or does KA8OFE have the same PL tone as well? I have heard these signals before but never long or clear enough to give me identifying material. I thought this was really cool and extraordinary!

 

[jaspence]

Vhf dx

Weather conditions can cause this to happen. An inversion layer can cause tunneling, and a signal can travel many miles further than normal. When I lived near Kalamazoo, MI, I used a HT with 5 watts and talked to another ham with a HT in a highrise by Lake Michigan in Chicago. PL would have to be the same, but I know areas a hundred miles apart with the same tones on the same frequency.

 

[fineshot1]

yes - it can happen. it could have been a ducting effect along lake erie.

around the same time along the east coast of nj, ny and de we also had a
terrific band opening so that may have been a similar event.

 

[redhelmet13]

I live here in far western NY. A nearby county, Erie PA, holds a weekly ARES/RACES/Skywarn net each Sunday night at 9 pm on a network of linked repeaters, one being 146.82 Mhz W3GV in Waterford, PA with a PL of 186.2.

Last Sunday when I tuned into this repeater a little early for the net, I heard scratchy but audible and readible singnals on the '82 repeater. After listening for a while, I realized I was hearing the net control station for the Williams county, OH Sunday emergency net!
That county is some 300 miles from my location!

I could hear some signals from that net, but not all. The ones I could hear were steady, leading me to believe that these signals were going into the repeater, not the repeater's output. The repeater used for that net is also 146.82, and after a little research I think it is the KA8OFE repeater in Bryan, OH.

How is it possible for these signals to key up my local repeater if they don't have the same PL tone? Or does KA8OFE have the same PL tone as well? I have heard these signals before but never long or clear enough to give me identifying material. I thought this was really cool and extraordinary!

Most likely the distant repeater uses the same PL tone... When we get ducting here in texas, I have made contacts with Mobile Al. from my 2 meter mobile (from Fort Worth). Thats one of the cool things about the hobby.

 

[eriepascannist]

Very cool, thanks for the replies, folks. It's probably more common than I thought originally, but I am totally fascinated with tropo and DX'ing. My antenna setup is mostly for UHF, so I have little to no success with VHF DX'ing (or any other kind, at that) so I was quite thrilled to hear these transmissions. It isn't uncommon for me to hear various repeaters from the Cleveland area and beyond (the lake's effect I guess) but I thought it was interesting that this distant repeater was also able to key up my local one.

In the future I hope to get a better antenna so I can do more with both DX and military air monitoring (my other new love.) BTW, heard my first milair transmission just now- yay!

 

[SCPD]

The best one I remember was a station in New Port Richey Florida working a station in Valley Forge, PA on the 146.640 repeater on Bearwallow Mountain in NC. That was before the days of PL tones on 2 meter repeaters. I was listening on an old Sears mutli-band radio. I think I still have the cassette recording somewhere.

 

[kb2vxa]

There are two possibilities here, either the Ohio net stations were transmitting a 186.2 tone or your local repeater has the tone squelch turned off for net operations as sometimes is the case. You can ask a control operator or the trustee about the latter. Your repeater didn't hear all in the net because power levels and antennas vary widely.

It's the time of the season for ducting, here on the coast it's legendary. Once upon a time I had an armchair QSO quite literally using my HT through a local "low profile" repeater at the Exxon refinery in Elizabeth, NJ and repeaters lit up all up and down the Eastern Seaboard. We had a blast that lasted for hours, just had to wait for all of them to drop before transmitting to avoid doubling.

 

[prcguy]

In So. Cal we have a repeater on Catalina Island about 26mi offshore from the Los Angeles coastline.

We occasionally have people check in from Hawaii which is about 2,550 miles away.
prcguy

 

[eriepascannist]

Thanks to everyone for the great DX stories. NC4DX, Florida to PA on a single N.Carolina repeater is amazing! As I said I find this facet of the scanning hobby fascinating.

The repeater was not operating CSQ at the time, PL's were turned on. The control operator for our local net had not yet put the repeater into "net mode" so it should still have been operating with the 186.2 tone. As I said, I did hear this repeater (I think the same one) once before, but during the day, when I know PL would have been on.

I don't know if anyone else heard the transmissions, as noone on the net mentioned them. Very cool!

 

[eriepascannist]

Thanks to everyone for the great DX stories. NC4DX, Florida to PA on a single N.Carolina repeater is amazing! As I said I find this facet of the scanning hobby fascinating.

The repeater was not operating CSQ at the time, PL's were turned on. The control operator for our local net had not yet put the repeater into "net mode" so it should still have been operating with the 186.2 tone. As I said, I did hear this repeater (I think the same one) once before, but during the day, when I know PL would have been on.


I don't know if anyone else heard the transmissions, as noone on the net mentioned them. Very cool!

 

[scanphreak]

Check this link out to learn more about Tropospheric Ducting. This is what you experienced. It happens when Cold air collides with warm air causing VHF and higher RF to get trapped and it travels between those layers. It always happens in early evening when hot days begin to cool down, etc. This page will give you a better understanding: Tropospheric propagation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And this page actually has LIVE forecasting for Tropo ducting, so you can actually see where signals are going to travel around or to. Its used by several people who like to DX on 2 meters of 70 centimeters SSB. Tropospheric Ducting Forecast for VHF & UHF Radio & TV

Personal note: There had been several times over the past 25 years or so where I'd made contact with people several states away from me on only 5 watts of power on a ringo ranger up 30 feet. When these band openings occur it's always a good idea to start scanning through the simplex portion of the band. You'll usually start hearing people talking, then you can just look up the callsigns to see where they're at. Make a contact or two. It's really neat. Like everyone else said, if your repeater has a tone on it and someone from another repeater far off is keying your's and their's up, that means they're both using the same tone.

 

[eriepascannist]

Thanks for the links. I like the live forecast- I'll be searching 2 meters next time the band opens!

 

[VA3QRM]

like scanphreak says: don't forget simplex

Had fun with a dual band HT in a 3rd floor apartment using a whip antenna during E skip and tropo openings back when I was just starting out. Great QSOs with hams in Erie/ western New York on 2 meters and 440 simplex from EN82mh Windsor Ontario. Still enjoy FM on 6 and 10 now.

 

[SCPD]

I live here in central Illinois. I remember years ago in the hot summer, as the temp cooled off in the evening, i was on a 5watt portable, and worked a vhf repeater in NW Georgia on i believe 145.390. Was some awesome ducting that night. I worked the guys for near an hour, before conditions disappeared.

 

[novascotian]

Very cool, thanks for the replies, folks. It's probably more common than I thought originally, but I am totally fascinated with tropo and DX'ing. My antenna setup is mostly for UHF, so I have little to no success with VHF DX'ing (or any other kind, at that) so I was quite thrilled to hear these transmissions. It isn't uncommon for me to hear various repeaters from the Cleveland area and beyond (the lake's effect I guess) but I thought it was interesting that this distant repeater was also able to key up my local one.

In the future I hope to get a better antenna so I can do more with both DX and military air monitoring (my other new love.) BTW, heard my first milair transmission just now- yay!

No one has commented on you saying that the distant repeater was able to key up your local one... that cannot be the way it happened. Your repeater and the distant one presumably each have an input of 146.22 and output of 146.82, so the output of the distant one cannot input into your local one. You must have been hearing the output of the distant repeater, or else the distant individual radios were reaching your repeater.

DX is one of the best parts about amateur radio, and scanning for that matter. There is nothing so thrilling as hearing an unusually distant signal, even in these days of cell phones and satellites.

 

[eriepascannist]

Cool stories, guys.

Last Sunday night, the DX was coming in again to 146.82 from the skywarn net in Williams county. It was actually so bad that it was overpowering our repeater links and we couldn't run our net because no one could hear each other. I read on our repeater web site Radio Association of Erie - W3GV – Erie, PA that the PL tone on 146.82 has been turned off, and "it needs to be turned back on." This I believe could explain some of the DX a little better than same freq and same PL. The problem never ocurred before this spring, so the PL is probably the issue.

As a note, we have a really cool echolink repeater out here that there's people on quite often. Not DX, but still cool- I hear lots of Florida stations, quite a few from various European countries, and South Africa- cool!