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Old 26th May 2023, 11:56 am   #1
SteveCG
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Default Recent Long distance FM reception

Over the last few days the settled conditions have brought some interesting, for me, reception. This morning not only was Tacolneston R3 in full stereo (in frequency it is sandwiched between much stronger Oxford and Wenvoe) but there were some German signals on 87.6 and a Dutch signal on 87.7 Mc/s.

These distant signals have to get to me with the Malvern Hills in the way - an example of knife edge diffraction?
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Old 26th May 2023, 8:33 pm   #2
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

This evening I was receiving a Italian language station in N Shropshire on about 101.8mc/s. Are there any Italian community stations in the Midlands or........?
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Old 27th May 2023, 9:51 am   #3
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

sexton_mallard - I suspect you may have been receiving an Italian station via sporadic E (SpE) propagation - it is the right time of the year for SpE. I certainly have received last year signals from Italy, Spain, Morocco on just a simple dipole aerial - when you get SpE it can produce strong signals.
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Old 27th May 2023, 9:59 am   #4
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

More Tropospheric enhanced distant FM radio reception this morning. Again, BBC Radio 3 from Tacolneston as well as R3 from North Hessary Tor, a German station on 87.6 Mc/s and the Dutch station on 87.7 Mc/s. I got an identity on the Dutch station 'Radio 10' which was coming from Lelystad - 110 kW, Vert. By the way, I am receiving it in the back lobe of a Horizontally mounted 5 element Antiference aerial. I wonder what a vertically mounted, forward looking aerial would produce!
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Old 27th May 2023, 10:26 am   #5
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

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Originally Posted by SteveCG View Post
More Tropospheric enhanced distant FM radio reception this morning. Again, BBC Radio 3 from Tacolneston as well as R3 from North Hessary Tor, a German station on 87.6 Mc/s and the Dutch station on 87.7 Mc/s. I got an identity on the Dutch station 'Radio 10' which was coming from Lelystad - 110 kW, Vert. By the way, I am receiving it in the back lobe of a Horizontally mounted 5 element Antiference aerial. I wonder what a vertically mounted, forward looking aerial would produce!
Thanks Steve! Aerial in my case was a bit of thin multi strand wire about 3 feet long and set at a 30 degree angle up to the shed roof apex inside the shed. Roughly in a E-W orientation with the downward slope in the E direction. It was just thrown up quickly. The tuner is sensitive on FM which appears to be a budget one what with a cardboard base!
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Last edited by sexton_mallard; 27th May 2023 at 10:36 am.
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Old 29th May 2023, 6:28 pm   #6
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

Things have been "a bit lifty" over the last week or so, Sp.E reception is really rather fun - I've been hearing Spanish, Italian and North African stations using only a horizontal dipole into my Roberts RM40.

It's always fun to listen around; I have a notch-filter to exclude the brute-force BBC National stations below 95MHz, though even with that in place most generic Band-II tuners/receivers can't handle the output of a 5-element Yagi and single-stage U310 grounded-gate preamp that I like to use for FM-DX listening.

Tune around; see what you can hear! FM DXing is much more fun than just listening to the local broadcast stations.
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Old 29th May 2023, 10:42 pm   #7
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

Not wishing to veer too off topic but Caroline is coming in well tonight on AM on my Ekco A455 with the station still audible in the 'fades'. Normally unlistenable at other times.
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Old 30th May 2023, 10:07 am   #8
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

There was a strong Sporadic E opening towards Spain and Italy yesterday early evening with so many FM stations piling in on top of each other plus rapid fading made RDS identification impossible. Here near Bristol it was mostly the lower part of the FM band, below 96 MHz, that was affected.

This morning whilst parked up at work on the car radio I was hearing a few French FM stations on my car radio via a small tropo lift including 88.7 and 105.2 from Lille.
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Old 30th May 2023, 1:06 pm   #9
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

The Hepburn Tropospheric Forecast is showing quite active tropo propagation around the British Isles generally for the next two days at least (Today being Tuesday 30th May) but there looks set to be quite a strong opening from the east coast across the North Sea to the low countries / Denmark tomorrow (Wednesday) teatime / evening. One for the radio amateurs as well as the VHF broadcast DXers, perhaps.
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Old 2nd Jun 2023, 11:10 am   #10
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

Well, I'm still getting good Tropo signals on FM from the East - talk about a famine turning into a feast!

My system is a J-Beam 'H' in the loft feeding a Sansui TU-S77X tuner. Whilst I can use the 'Narrow' IF option, with this Tropo lift a lot of the time the normal 'Wide' setting produces good quality Stereo on BBC R3 - in the teeth of adjacent Oxford and Wenvoe.
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Old 2nd Jun 2023, 3:27 pm   #11
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

Been listening to Smooth Radio on 106.6 FM from Waltham a few mins ago & it keeps going all distorted with I presume tropo/sporadic-E interference. I've had a tune around & some weak stations are there, only using the little rod aerial on top of the set though...
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Old 6th Jun 2023, 11:14 am   #12
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

.... Saturday only brought indifferent tropo and no SpE. Whereas Sunday brought both tropo and in the evening, Italian SpE in the 87.5 - 87.9 Mc/s part of the FM Band.
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Old 6th Jun 2023, 5:56 pm   #13
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

The aforementioned Hepburn Tropospheric Forecast

https://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo_nwe.html

is showing the potential for a good opening from the east coast across to the low countries again on the evening of Wed June 7th, and then another potentially good opening again before and after midnight on Friday 9th June all the way up the east coast as far as Shetland and beyond. I well recall one past occasion when I was walking on a Northumberland beach with a 2 metre handheld and found myself talking to someone in Lerwick (on Simplex, not via a repeater). It would be nice to experience conditions like that again.
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Old 6th Jun 2023, 10:17 pm   #14
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

I've experienced this just the once back in around 2007 ish when the Leak Stereofetic with
just one of those "free" 300R twin feeder dipoles in my then second system was suddenly picking up loads of stations in French, German and Dutch one morning! Too weak for stereo but entertainment quality with the mono button pressed IIRC.
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Old 8th Jun 2023, 11:17 am   #15
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

And still the tropo propagation persists. This morning, as like yesterday, Tacolneston BBC R3 (91.9 Mc/s) coming through well; Wrotham BBC R3 on 91.3 Mc/s also.

In addition, this morning on 87.6 Mc/s, I was getting the German station NDR 2, from Hamburg, weak but stable reception.

I can't remember when we last had such a prolonged period of tropo lift...
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Old 9th Jun 2023, 11:11 am   #16
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

Yesterday (Thurs) I was receiving on 87.9 Mc/s NDR (Info) virtually all day. The NDR 2 signal on 87.6 Mc/s had faded.
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Old 12th Jun 2023, 11:05 am   #17
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

The enhanced FM radio tropo propagation still persists for me - quite remarkable...
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Old 13th Jun 2023, 8:36 pm   #18
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveCG View Post
Yesterday (Thurs) I was receiving on 87.9 Mc/s NDR (Info) virtually all day. The NDR 2 signal on 87.6 Mc/s had faded.
Tonight this time I was receiving a German language station around 87 MC/S and it faded away like a dream as I was fumbling with my phone to video my set!
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Old 14th Jun 2023, 8:17 am   #19
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

Shame there’s no distant 405 line tv or analogue UHF to receive!
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Old 14th Jun 2023, 9:54 am   #20
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Default Re: Recent Long distance FM reception

There have been Sporadic E openings mostly to the south over the last two evenings. Stations from Italy , Spain, North Africa and Croatia heard using my car radio or a portable radio with its telescopic rod aerial.
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