Awesome conditions on vhf/uhf last night

[Blackcat630]

I'm assuming this would be attributed to troposheric ducting. Worked some 2m ssb guys in northern il and into wisconsin around 8pm. This isn't all that uncommon...200-400mi 2m ssb. Then things got way better. I chat with some local guys about 25 miles south on 446.000 simplex usually 10-11 pm. We had a breaking station I let him go. Come to find out he was 25 miles west of Madison wisconsin! 279 air miles from me. We had no trouble working each other. Both of us running comet verticals around 30-40 ft. We decreased power to 5w...still no problem! We then tried out 220 simplex..again no problem. So we jumped to 2m ssb...5w 5/9. Then to round it out 146.520 simplex..no problems 5w. I had too much fun and just wanted to share! 73 all..

 

[vkrules]

Yeh lot of fun when HF is poor. We get regular temp inversions over summer, at about dusk. best place to work them is on a hill close to the beach.
Also have worked Brisbane to Auckland NZ on a duct caused by a Pacific Cyclone .
We started on 6m moved to 2m then to 70cm .3000km on 70cm!

What are the weather conditions and geographical conditions in your area, just curious.

 

[Blackcat630]

500-600 feet above sea level is about average for us. Flat farm country. I'm roughly 40 miles from the Mississippi River. Yesterday we had showers on and off..mostly it all moved just to the south of me. Cloudy last night..kinda in between weather sytems. More rain moved in over night. I've played on 2m quite a bit since the 90's. I'm used to the typical early morning openings up to a couple hundred miles fm into repeaters or simplex to guys on beams or verticals at a good height. 2m ssb around the midwest. Last night was different. I've really never seen conditions this good. I almost wanted to go outside on my ht and see if he could hear me lol...

 

[vkrules]

Interesting So what do you think low pressure front colliding with a high pressure front!

 

[vkrules]

Thanks for posting BC. A lot of the newbies wouldn't know this was possible .

 

[Blackcat630]

Interesting So what do you think low pressure front colliding with a high pressure front!

I'm not sure. I guess I need to do a little studying in the meteorological department. What ever it was it definitely doesn't happen every day. Guess it was one of those "right place at the right time" things.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Cool nights followed by rapid warming as the sun comes up typically causes a "lift" as it is called. This happens mostly in late spring and early fall up here. The same effect happens as the sun goes down and you have rapid cooling. It is amazing what happens on the FM broadcast band with all those 100 Kw stations. I actually heard WOKI in Knoxville Tenn. when they were on 100.3 and it was beating up a local station on 100.1 Not bad for 1200 miles.

 

[gamegetter]

tropo ducting is a really cool phenomenon, i really enjoy it.

 

[Blackcat630]

Resurrecting this one from a few years back...

The last month or so has been great for tropo. Grabbed several new grids between Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and a couple in Texas about 3 wks ago. Last night was great also but to the east...new grids in Ohio, Ontario and Pennsylvania. 144.200 is dead most of the time but when conditions are favorable its a blast! If you guys have all mode capabilities you might check it out. You don't need a huge yagi and a KW. 100 watts and a 10-15 element yagi horizontal at decent height works great when mother nature cooperates.

This is a good resource for weak signal vhf/uhf enhancement.

http://aprs.mennolink.org

73 all