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Atmospherics (merged) (Part 3)


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Old 03-09-2012, 21:18
Nick_G
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September 1982 looks right to me. Check out these weather maps for the month:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsreaeur.html

It looks like there was a huge area of high pressure dominating the UK and Europe between the 10th and 19th. To find the maps select the year, month and date (start from the 9th to see the high develop) and hit 'Zeigen'. Do these dates sound correct Andy?

1982 was before I started DXing as I was only 11, but November 1987 is one that sticks in my mind as one of the best in my experience. Was the September '82 event even better?
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Old 04-09-2012, 11:47
radioredcat
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although I thought you said it was 83 previously,
Hmm very sharp I think I may have done so well it was 30 years ago and memories fade in time.

I have DDR 2 video which has the date 15 september no year but it tallys up with the site Nick had provided and also this site.

http://www.dandantheweatherman.com/B...w/Septwarm.htm

Andy
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Old 04-09-2012, 13:06
radioredcat
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September 1982 looks right to me. Check out these weather maps for the month:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsreaeur.html

It looks like there was a huge area of high pressure dominating the UK and Europe between the 10th and 19th. To find the maps select the year, month and date (start from the 9th to see the high develop) and hit 'Zeigen'. Do these dates sound correct Andy?

1982 was before I started DXing as I was only 11, but November 1987 is one that sticks in my mind as one of the best in my experience. Was the September '82 event even better?
It was better in some respects like DDR from Brocken 525 miles was present during several days except when it wasn't blitzed by French tv which used to dominate the bands then.
Going off my log French TV occupied 26 UHF ch's
I remember the weather forecasts warning about pollution problems because of the high pressure.

I found my old log books and I have the 1987 lift you refer to 03/11/87-07/11/87 and there were many huge openings in the 80/90's unlike the puny ones we get now.

I suppose a lot depends which part of the country you are as tropo can be good in one part and not so good in another every opening throws up something different.

Anyway it's still looking good for the end of the week.

Andy
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Old 04-09-2012, 14:37
catherine91
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Had a pretty good signal from a Dutch station on 98.9 (I forget its name) in the car park at Asda about 3 hours ago, but the signal faded to almost nothing when I turned the car round. On the way home I listened to Joe FM from Egem instead, and it was displaying RDS by the time I got back.
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Old 04-09-2012, 14:42
FmBandScan
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Had a pretty good signal from a Dutch station on 98.9 (I forget its name) in the car park at Asda about 3 hours ago, but the signal faded to almost nothing when I turned the car round. On the way home I listened to Joe FM from Egem instead, and it was displaying RDS by the time I got back.
That station would have been Radio 1.

Conditions today are pretty much the same as yesterday.
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Old 04-09-2012, 19:36
Nick_G
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There were reasonable tropo conditions to Belgium and Luxembourg this morning. The best signal was from Liège on 95.6 which peaked up in stereo. Léglise 87.6 was weak but clear mono, and 100.7 from LUX was up to fair mono levels.

Looking forward to the next few days. I can only wish and dream for a repeat of a September 1982 scenario before the end of the year!
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Old 04-09-2012, 19:53
ACL777
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According to Hepburn there should be good conditions now but I'm not getting anything out of the ordinary.
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Old 04-09-2012, 20:02
brumlad36
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According to Hepburn there should be good conditions now but I'm not getting anything out of the ordinary.
You're not alone. I'm not getting anything out of the ordinary either.

Chris.
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Old 04-09-2012, 20:17
sleeper77
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I am getting some varied & sometimes clear signals from France & Belgium. 95.7 VRT1, 98.6 VRT2, 99.1 RTBF 21 Classic, Cherbourg fair to good. Not that exciting for some but at least something.

The way the tropo charts are shaping up tomorrow, it should be good enough to receive the likes of Republic Of Ireland, Spain & maybe even Portugal. Just hope it does not get downgraded. R.O.I. on tropo was caught this year with RTE Gaelic on 94.4...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaaD3UP4g4w

Spain on tropo was last year on 94.5, 95.8 102.7 & 106.6...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_ZHh-rB4wk. So keep a look out for those frequencies in case there is a repeat. Hoping conditions change for the better & the charts are not downgraded.
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Old 04-09-2012, 20:19
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I'm not getting anything from overseas right now, it peaked up around 5pm but then it seemed to just drop off.
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Old 04-09-2012, 20:41
radioredcat
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The band here is about normal levels Wrotham 100.9 just making it and heart from sutton 100.7 on dipole A in the back of box but Real from bilsdale is slightly up on 100.7 on dipole B.

It's funny hearing adds for digital switchover.

Andy
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Old 04-09-2012, 21:19
ACL777
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I was getting Langenberg above the noise last night on vertical strangely enough but nothing at the momment. I'm leaving it on 106.7,if there is anything according to Hepburn it should come most strongly from Germany and Denmark, so Langenberg will be a good marker. What looks really intetesting is a tropo coming from Poland in the next few days.
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Old 04-09-2012, 23:30
Nick_G
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Was listening to Vivacité on 101.8 and it faded out to leave German talk which must be DLF Aurich. This just faded out too but I think it could be a sign of things to come.

Will try a few more channels for Germany.

On another note I just bought another tuner on eBay Germany. Should be with me next week hopefully. Details when it arrives...
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Old 05-09-2012, 00:32
Nick_G
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Just had NDR 2 fade up on 87.6 from Hamburg. It's trying to get going!

If Hepburn is correct this should be better by sunrise.
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Old 05-09-2012, 06:35
Nick_G
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So I try the band this morning and the German lift has gone! I got a steady fully-quieting signal from NDR 1 Niedersachsen on 91.1 though last night before I went to bed. Hopefully conditions will rebuild tonight.
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Old 05-09-2012, 11:30
radioredcat
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I am receiving a signal on 87.6 right in the back of the box I could here Rod Stewart being played but it's so noisy I could not here the speech very well and the signal is peaking east and horizontal.

The band is flat apart from the above.

While listening to 87.6 there's not half a lot MS going on.

Andy
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Old 05-09-2012, 12:34
Jim_AFCB
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September 1982 looks right to me. Check out these weather maps for the month:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsreaeur.html

It looks like there was a huge area of high pressure dominating the UK and Europe between the 10th and 19th. To find the maps select the year, month and date (start from the 9th to see the high develop) and hit 'Zeigen'. Do these dates sound correct Andy?

1982 was before I started DXing as I was only 11, but November 1987 is one that sticks in my mind as one of the best in my experience. Was the September '82 event even better?
Mid-September 1982 had an extensive tropo opening on 144Mhz with UK stations working as far east as the Baltic states.

There was also a heatwave with temps of up to 28c in southern England.

There is a full writeup of this opening in the (I think) December 1982 edition of Radio Communication. I'll have to fetch my copy from the loft....
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Old 05-09-2012, 17:33
Nick_G
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Thanks Jim. That would be a very interesting read.

Funnily enough someone mentioned on a weather forum that one of the forecasting models is predicting 27C in London on Sunday. Wouldn't it be good if there was a repeat of the tropo from 30 years ago...
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Old 05-09-2012, 18:05
DDaveBB
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So I try the band this morning and the German lift has gone! I got a steady fully-quieting signal from NDR 1 Niedersachsen on 91.1 though last night before I went to bed. Hopefully conditions will rebuild tonight.
In the twenty or so minutes from getting back from work i have received the following (GMT time):

MHz UTC ITU Program + Location Details Remarks km
89.30 1635 D hr3, Großer Feldberg (Taunus)/hr (hes) pi code only - also from announcement PI: D363 555 km
90.60 1640 D WDR 5, Teutoburger Wald/Bielstein (nrw) id from webstream - fading into noise a lot 560 km
91.00 1648 D hr1, Sackpfeife (Biedenkopf) (hes) id from web stream 544 km

I was getting reasonable tropo lift on sunday, Monday and Tuesday with all the German transmitters from Langenberg giving the pi code at some point. Luxembourg has been coming in on 88.9 and producing a pi code. And as you say this morning was flat.

On Tuesday 4th on 87.7 from 22:33 when I tuned in until 22:48 when the signal disappeared completely I getting a station with a mixture of music and speech - which had definitely 'east european' speech pattern. Best pick up was on the SSE and the S facing aerials - although at one point it faded to nothing on the SSE whilst still coming in clearly on the S facing aerial. No pi code - three times it came up with 0000 on RDSSpy.

I couldn't marry it up to any station on FMList, and I'm not currently geared up for recording. Given the way it went out like a light I'm pretty sure it was SpE - but where from. Signal direction doesn't tie in with the Balkans - which should have come in well on the Easterly aerial - unless the signal was backscattering from an intense ES cloud.

Anyone else get this??

David

Sittingbourne
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Old 05-09-2012, 18:28
sleeper77
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No SPe here since August, although I have not been monitoring much since then.

The tropo looks less promising than yesterday for me. Belgium has not appeared today, only fairly average signals from Cherbourg. According to the tropo charts, it should all start kicking in now till tomorrow. Today was supposed to be better than today but it has not happened yet. Looks like another downgrade, although there is still time for improvement. On the other hand, shortwave was very good yesterday with clear signals from Tanzania & BBC World Service for Africa.
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Old 05-09-2012, 18:57
Jim_AFCB
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September often produces tropo - I remember another very good opening in 1988, when I worked Poland on 144Mhz.

Ah yes, September... Season of Lifts and mellow fruitfulness... isn't that what Keates wrote?

Back to the present...
Things could be getting 'lifty' - an early sign is often medium range TXs that normally provide a good-ish signal under flat conditions, start to fade out completely at times. We used to get our TV signals from Hannington (neaer Newbury) as we couldnt get Rowridge on the north side of Wimborne in Dorset where I lived at the time. Often the first sign of a lift was when we'd lose the TV signals altogether.

This evening, Radio 2 from North Hessary Tor keeps fading down to nothing when it is normally a good-ish signal here, so maybe some ducting starting to kick in. Might have to wait till the weekend as the high starts to decline for the best of the conditions though.

Weather forums are a very good place to look when trying to assess how the weather patterns might go. The one on Netweather.tv is excellent.
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Old 05-09-2012, 19:35
Nick_G
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Jim, I remember the September 1988 lift. I was living with my parents and I had a portable Ferguson radio-cassette player in the upstairs bedroom sat on the bookshelf above the bed. I remember getting heaps of French signals, deep into France as well as Germans including Hornisgrinde and even an Irish pirate called Sunshine Radio on around 101.4! This one lasted for several days.

Sounds like the '82 lift may have been even better.
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Old 05-09-2012, 20:50
radioredcat
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Today I felt adventurous so I threw up the swan neck mast and now have my dipoles on it about 2 meters higher than they were.

I now can hear on the dipoles Today fm 100.9 fighting with Wrotham and Claremont Carn RTE R1 on 87.8 and conditions from ireland today are flat so they are working.

I have posted some pics.

http://s593.photobucket.com/albums/t.../My%20Aerials/

Dave the PI code 0000 maybe a pirate as Biltz fm 100.7 with RDS and they use the PI code C000.

Andy
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Old 05-09-2012, 20:58
FmBandScan
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Today I felt adventurous so I threw up the swan neck mast and now have my dipoles on it about 2 meters higher than they were.

I now can hear on the dipoles Today fm 100.9 fighting with Wrotham and Claremont Carn RTE R1 on 87.8 and conditions
from ireland today are flat so they are working.
Andy
Do you feel like being adventurous and putting my FM3 on the chimney?
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Old 05-09-2012, 22:06
FmBandScan
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Ok, so the Hepburn charts are looking on target right now, it's predicting for around now that the enhancements are best around sw/w/nw and that is correct as I can get BBC Leicster 104.9 with noise free signals, fingers crossed it progresses how hepburn is telling!
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