Posted: 2/1/2010 6:40:59 PM EDT
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Driving home from work today, my radio stops scanning on a 2M simplex channel. The signal is weak and broken at first, but when I get home, I'm receiving the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon NET loud and clear.
I live almost 200 miles (line-of-sight) from where the race is taking place. One of the vols was on an HT, and I was receiving him like he was local. I've never experienced that before. |
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From another one of my posts where someone was asking about the ft-2900R:
Its a damn good simple radio. I use it for a little extra kick when ducting is in effect. I have made contacts over 250 miles direct with it. my antenna was up about 18 feet, recieving antennas were 15 to 30 feet. 1-21-2010 through 1-22-2101 2 meters FM 75Watts 21:55CST 146.62MHZ my call= KD5UJZ-Alice Texas recieving calls: N5LNL Brian in Bacliff texas K5MLC Mike in La Marque, TX (217 miles) KD5PXH Mike in Santa Fe, TX (210 miles) K5HCS Hulen, Beaumont, TX (279 miles) 
Watch this site for VHF band openings. It works off the APRS network, and will detect long paths point to point. http://mountainlake.k12.mn.us/ham/aprs/path.cgi?map=na |
| I was siting on my deck last summer with my HT.Had it on 146.520 to see if there was any local simplex in my small town. Heard a guy and called him. Talked for a minute and he asked where I was in town. I told him and he said where is that at. Finally figed he was about 190 miles north of me. He was in a repeater room working on the repeater. He had a 10 watt mobile doing some checks on the antenna. He said he would be up there for a while to try back agian latter.It worked until he left,about 5 hours. Unusall it lasts that long. I have had further 500+ mile contacts but not on a HT |
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Quoted:
Tropospheric ducting ("tropo"). Atmospheric conditions create a situation where radio signals are carried long distances over the horizon... typically found with temperature inversion layers as well as some kinds of weather fronts. Yup. Palos Verdes is a large hill that juts out into the Pacific. It forms the southern part of Santa Monica Bay in California. Some of the PV ARC guys can be seen racing up & down the hill with their Yagis in their trucks, trying to work CW tropo openings into Hawaii. |
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A couple of weeks ago, we were having some awesome 2m / VHF conditions. There were several public safety channels in the Chicago area that were picking up signals in the clear from the east side of Michigan. There were several times when I heard 2m traffic in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on my mobile while driving around. Mother Nature does neat things sometimes. Mike F |
| Usually I can tell when the weather and conditions are working well around here. We have a Public Safety Channel called Point to Point and it is supposed to be for all LEO agenices up here to talk to one another. I can usually only hear the 3 counties surrounding me. But when I can hear way Northern counties or agenices on the west side of the state usually means conditions around me are good. This last time guys up here were reporting hearing guys on South side of Chicago on the 2M bands. |
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Quoted:
Two or three weeks ago during our weekly 2m ARES net, we had a check-in from a moderate strength station from Springfield, TN. That's 275 miles from Indianapolis.  Thats how the I made my 275 mile contacts. Local group held a nightly net on the 2m calling channel in houston. I heard them, and gave my call and location during a break. the signal would hardly move my s meter, but the audio was great. |