1 of 1- RadioActive
- Moderator
Offline 
Could This Coming Event Be A Day Of Days For DXers?
On October 14th, you're probably going to be hearing a lot about a solar eclipse that will blot out much of the sun for a brief time over North America. I have to admit that, before reading the linked article below, I never really thought about how those space events might affect radio signals.
But ham operators have and they're getting together in force on that day to see just how the celestial show affects the way signals bounce off the ionosphere, hopefully leading to some strange reception reports. It's an experiment that's already been conducted in the U.K.
"In 1999, volunteers tracked variations in signal strength during the eclipse and many recorded a significant spike, revealing how radio transmissions could briefly travel much further than they normally would in the daytime.
"Bamford and her colleagues also asked members of the public to tune their home radios to a frequency used by a Spanish broadcaster. Normally, this station wouldn't have been audible on domestic radios during the day but many hundreds of people in the UK reported hearing the broadcast fade in and then out again as the eclipse came and went."
So mark the day on your calendar and if you're into this kind of stuff, have a radio nearby. Maybe you won't find anything. Or it could be the kind of day you'll be talking about for years. According to an online chart, the eclipse in Toronto starts at around 11:55 AM and will continue until roughly 1:10 PM. Which should give you just over an hour to see what - if anything - is there.
Eclipses do odd things to radio waves. An army of amateur broadcasters wants to find out why
- paterson1
- Member
Offline
Re: Could This Coming Event Be A Day Of Days For DXers?
I have never been into DXing that much but over the past few weeks I have been pulling in Toronto radio much better than normal here in K/W. I had 92.5 KISS blasting in loud and clear on Tuesday. I never normally get this station. Also CHUM, CHFI, CFNY and Virgin have all been much stronger than normal. Between Kitchener and Guelph recently I was able to pull in Rock 95 Barrie clearly, and briefly 93.5 Today radio. I was getting a few US stations but they were fuzzier and more temperamental in and out, not really sure what cities or towns they were from. But I did recognize 102.5 Buffalo's new religious station which usually doesn't reach K/W at all.
- mace
- Member
Offline
Re: Could This Coming Event Be A Day Of Days For DXers?
paterson1 wrote:
I have never been into DXing that much but over the past few weeks I have been pulling in Toronto radio much better than normal here in K/W. I had 92.5 KISS blasting in loud and clear on Tuesday. I never normally get this station. Also CHUM, CHFI, CFNY and Virgin have all been much stronger than normal. Between Kitchener and Guelph recently I was able to pull in Rock 95 Barrie clearly, and briefly 93.5 Today radio. I was getting a few US stations but they were fuzzier and more temperamental in and out, not really sure what cities or towns they were from. But I did recognize 102.5 Buffalo's new religious station which usually doesn't reach K/W at all.
Interesting that 102.5 is rarely available in KW. Any adjacent frequency interference that might cause this? The Buffalo station's signal doesn't go far north of Toronto now because of the CBC repeater in Shelburne.
- turkeytop
- Member
Offline
Re: Could This Coming Event Be A Day Of Days For DXers?
Interesting. Thanks for posting. I wasn't even aware of an eclipse coming in October.
After all is said and done, more is usually said than done.
- paterson1
- Member
Offline
Re: Could This Coming Event Be A Day Of Days For DXers?
I have never been into DXing that much but over the past few weeks I have been pulling in Toronto radio much better than normal here in K/W. I had 92.5 KISS blasting in loud and clear on Tuesday. I never normally get this station. Also CHUM, CHFI, CFNY and Virgin have all been much stronger than normal. Between Kitchener and Guelph recently I was able to pull in Rock 95 Barrie clearly, and briefly 93.5 Today radio. I was getting a few US stations but they were fuzzier and more temperamental in and out, not really sure what cities or towns they were from. But I did recognize 102.5 Buffalo's new religious station which usually doesn't reach K/W at all.
Interesting that 102.5 is rarely available in KW. Any adjacent frequency interference that might cause this? The Buffalo station's signal doesn't go far north of Toronto now because of the CBC repeater in Shelburne.
Locally wiki has a listing for 102.5 Lite FM in Kitchener but I have never heard of this station and going to the website it says they are not broadcasting. Either side we have 102.3 Jack FM in London which you can listen to and 102.7 CKMS University of Waterloo. 102.5 Buffalo is listenable south end of Cambridge but normally doesn't reach the Kitchener/Waterloo area, or at least for me. There was another US religious station that put in a weak signal fairly often back when they were Star 102.5, but I never caught what city they were broadcasting from. This one was a more hard line evangelical format.
- haydenmatthews14
- Member
Offline
Re: Could This Coming Event Be A Day Of Days For DXers?
I have never been into DXing that much but over the past few weeks I have been pulling in Toronto radio much better than normal here in K/W. I had 92.5 KISS blasting in loud and clear on Tuesday. I never normally get this station. Also CHUM, CHFI, CFNY and Virgin have all been much stronger than normal. Between Kitchener and Guelph recently I was able to pull in Rock 95 Barrie clearly, and briefly 93.5 Today radio. I was getting a few US stations but they were fuzzier and more temperamental in and out, not really sure what cities or towns they were from. But I did recognize 102.5 Buffalo's new religious station which usually doesn't reach K/W at all.
Funny I picked up Kiss 92.5 but not the one from Toronto. This past week I picked up the one from Toledo OH yep very rare to pick up that station since ether the one from Toronto or a Country station on 92.5 from Rochester NY usally will come in once in a while. Also the stations from Erie like Star 104 (103.7 FM) Kiss 96.5 from Cleveland OH and 93,9 Virgin Radio in Windsor came in clear but later faded out in the afternoon.
- paterson1
- Member
Offline
Re: Could This Coming Event Be A Day Of Days For DXers?
I was in the car late yesterday afternoon into the evening and again 92.5 Kiss was coming in clear in the car. Greg Burns was doing a fine job. Also CHUM, Virgin 99.9, Q107, CFNY, CHFI all coming in much better than the norm. I will be out later today, so I will hit the scan button and see what comes up.
- RadioActive
- Moderator
Offline
Re: Could This Coming Event Be A Day Of Days For DXers?
The solar eclipse starts in the GTA area around 11:55 AM Saturday and lasts until about 1:09 PM or so, if you want to turn on your radio and see if there's anything unusual there.
- •
Thread Starter