groundwave talking?

[wavrider]

OK, let's see, 15+55=70÷2 = an average height of 35', pretty close!

I wonder, if that was a rarity, then why? Satellite? Thermal inversion? So what distance seems consistent, or was that just a rare night in terms of how quiet?

Dunno Can not explain it, this seems to happen with plenty of humidity in the air,( something we are used to here in FL) also seems more so when foggy conditions early mornings.

CBers call it groundwave, the term coined here on this forum is skywave.

There is an early morning group that gets on CH30 am early mornings that talk from Jacksonville FL to Orlando and Tampa every morning, Some mornings are better than others.

 

[Bearcat]

Fog and clouds seem to conduct radio waves better..slight mist ect.

 

[DainBramage]

Dunno Can not explain it...seems more so when foggy conditions early mornings. Some mornings are better than others.

the cause is refraction of the RF signal,.........
Refraction comes into play when an RF wave enters a new medium at an angle of less than 90°. As the wave enters the new medium, a change in the wave's speed occurs sooner on one side of the wave than on the other. This causes the wave's direction of travel to be bent.

Under normal conditions, a signal that is not blocked or obstructed simply travels in a straight line out into space, never to return to Earth again. However, various atmospheric conditions often cause the normal path of signals to be bent downward, returning the signal to the surface of the Earth, sometimes a great distance from its point of origin

 

[Retro]

My base station uses a Solarcon A-99 on a homemade pole on my back porch. I'm in a low spot between two mountains, but there's several hundred feet between me and the mountains on either side, so it's not as bad as it could be. The highest tip of the A-99 is 41 feet in the air. When skip isn't hammering I can reliably talk to locals within about a 30 mile circle (as measured in a straight line), but it depends on the direction. Some of the people I can reliably talk to are at or just over 100 miles away (straight line), but I have trouble hearing some other people who are just barely 20 miles away. The hills on either side of me cause me to do better in some directions than in others.

My pickup truck radio is a barefoot Cobra 148 GTL. I have 18 feet of RG8U coax connected to a 102 inch steel whip on an oversized/heavy duty stud and a 6 inch heavy duty spring. The antenna is mounted into the top of the bed rail about 6 inches in front of my passenger side tail light. (I just drilled a 3/8" hole through the bed rail to use in place of a bracket) My "reliable" range on it is really just dependent on where I'm at because of the terrain. Generally speaking as long as the skip isn't rolling I can reliably talk to anybody within 20-30 miles or so, assuming they've got a good enough antenna to hear me (I do much better talking from my mobile radio to people on base stations than to other mobile radios, especially if the other mobile radio has an inferior antenna). In certain spots though I can talk just as far as I can on my base station antenna. When I take trips down the Mountain Parkway to Lexington, KY, when I'm on my way back there's a good sized mountain at the Slade, KY exit. Once I hit the top of that mountain I'm about 45 miles (straight line) away from a lot of my locals but I can still talk to them with no problems on a 4 watt radio. However, I lose them when I dip down into valleys. Mobile to mobile depends heavily on what the other person has in their vehicle as well as terrain. Coming back down the Parkway where I have no problems talking to the locals on a 4 watt radio, once when my brother was with me (in his own car right in front of me) he couldn't even tell anybody was talking with his Little Wil', and I was getting 4-5 dB on my S meter with my antenna and was able to talk back to them. To take a wild guess, I would say mobile to mobile in this mountainous terrain, my reliable distance is anywhere from 5 to 15 miles as long as you're not down in a deep hole somewhere and depending on what kind of rig you're running.

 

[Bearcat]

My base station uses a Solarcon A-99 on a homemade pole on my back porch. I'm in a low spot between two mountains, but there's several hundred feet between me and the mountains on either side, so it's not as bad as it could be. The highest tip of the A-99 is 41 feet in the air. When skip isn't hammering I can reliably talk to locals within about a 30 mile circle (as measured in a straight line), but it depends on the direction. Some of the people I can reliably talk to are at or just over 100 miles away (straight line), but I have trouble hearing some other people who are just barely 20 miles away. The hills on either side of me cause me to do better in some directions than in others.

My pickup truck radio is a barefoot Cobra 148 GTL. I have 18 feet of RG8U coax connected to a 102 inch steel whip on an oversized/heavy duty stud and a 6 inch heavy duty spring. The antenna is mounted into the top of the bed rail about 6 inches in front of my passenger side tail light. (I just drilled a 3/8" hole through the bed rail to use in place of a bracket) My "reliable" range on it is really just dependent on where I'm at because of the terrain. Generally speaking as long as the skip isn't rolling I can reliably talk to anybody within 20-30 miles or so, assuming they've got a good enough antenna to hear me (I do much better talking from my mobile radio to people on base stations than to other mobile radios, especially if the other mobile radio has an inferior antenna). In certain spots though I can talk just as far as I can on my base station antenna. When I take trips down the Mountain Parkway to Lexington, KY, when I'm on my way back there's a good sized mountain at the Slade, KY exit. Once I hit the top of that mountain I'm about 45 miles (straight line) away from a lot of my locals but I can still talk to them with no problems on a 4 watt radio. However, I lose them when I dip down into valleys. Mobile to mobile depends heavily on what the other person has in their vehicle as well as terrain. Coming back down the Parkway where I have no problems talking to the locals on a 4 watt radio, once when my brother was with me (in his own car right in front of me) he couldn't even tell anybody was talking with his Little Wil', and I was getting 4-5 dB on my S meter with my antenna and was able to talk back to them. To take a wild guess, I would say mobile to mobile in this mountainous terrain, my reliable distance is anywhere from 5 to 15 miles as long as you're not down in a deep hole somewhere and depending on what kind of rig you're running.

Nice range