The Hepburn forecast maps say no enhancements between Sydney and Canberra but I am receiving Classic fm Canberra, weak to moderate at best.
When that signal fades weak Triple J CWS slopes underneath.
Thanks for the heads up on RN Goulburn, might have to do a trip up to Acacia Gardens to the water tower, and look suspicious !!!
They already have that on AM with 576 and 846, 1098 probably isnāt even really needed anyway when you consider bigger towns like Ballarat and Bendigo seem to cope okay with listening to RN from Melbourne or Wangaratta.
It probably is not required with 576 and 846.
I guess itās main purpose other than covering Goulburn is to provide some coverage for the Southern Highlands to make up for no high powered Illawarra fm service.
Also they get rid of the Am transmission site, cost saving.
107.7 should have been allocated to RN for a Goulburn town service only, and 97.9 for GNFM at 40KW OD.
RN Goulburn (97.9) was off air last night so obviously they are still in the testing phase. Havenāt checked it this morning.
AM is becoming ever more difficult to listen to in modern vehicles that have all the uber gadgets and I donāt think most electric vehicles even have AM as standard. So there is growing impetus for FM/DAB only listening whilst mobile. The avalanche of FM āboostersā in US cities is an indication of this trend.
Driving between Sydney and Canberra you can already listen to the other ABC networks on FM/DAB for the entire journey. RN was the only exception, requiring a switch to the 576/846/1098 triumvirate around Goulburn and the Southern Highlands.
Iāll be interested to see what this does to all those spurs that were emitting off Mt Gray
Last time I was there, I counted at least seven frequencies that were a mix of Eagle FM and something elseā¦ and that was before GNFM started.
I believe itās better now than it used to be, but also now that there are more frequencies that are not using the same 0.8 mhz spacing as Eagle FM and the other ABCs are, it may get worse again.
Despite the gloomy weather, there is a bit of enhancement about at the moment.
Sydney and Wollongong stronger than usual. Didnāt get time to do a more thorough scan.
Thanks for that. But not just that, I note weak, sporadic 94.3 Townsville moments ago.
Late seasonal Es
Dead cat bounce probably; Iām only going to bother if itās double hop at this point. Call me a DX snob but you do get tired of hearing Townsville by this point in the season!
Big Es happening across the east coast right now. Have everything from Orange/Wagga to Melbourne coming in right now, multiple stations of many frequencies
To add some more detail to my earlier hurried post, had a good nearly hour-long opening from about 6pm local time last night where many areas were being heard all at good levels.
Highlight for me was reception of 2MCE Bathurst on 92.3 (helpfully IDed by @dxnerd ) - 1kW at a distance of around 730km is very short hop. But had strong signals of many parts of southern NSW (Wagga, Young, Orange, Parkes) right through Victoria (Wodonga, Shepparton, Bendigo, Ballarat, Horsham, Geelong, Melbourne, Traralgon) and even South Australia with Mt Gambier appearing too. So much was happening it was difficult to identify individual stations, and RDS was tricky as mutliple stations were fighting for each frequency. By far the best opening of the season (which has been fairly lacklustre until now).
2ABCRN 97.9 Goulburn is staying on air tonight. Currently listening to the dulcet tones of Phillip Adams in glorious FM mono.
Marvellous Comrade.
Detecting a tiny (non audible) signal on SDR tonight.
Assuming itās Goulburn rather than Coughs Coats
In other news; the signal strength of 89.7 2RES appears to be varying a bit, at times quite weak.
Some unusual Es DX coming in from NZ at the moment 91.8 , 92.6ā¦
But disappeared a minute after posting c2311 AEDST
Couldnāt see any logs on the WSPR site.
Looking at the radar on the Weatherzone website, thereās these unusual pink blobs showing, like an overlay over the heavy rain intensity colours. Never seen that before. Not showing on the BOM radar.
Very interesting I wonder if the storms had anything to do with the brief SpE catch you had.
It was pretty savage at my location in NW Sydney, pea sized hail, and rain rates up to 186mm per hour.
There would have been plenty of lightning scatter reception.
I was wondering about that too.
Wow!
I suspect so too.
I know localised lightning is too low in elevation to enable a much longer Aus/NZ path.
There is however something called āspritesā than can occur during times of lightning strikes, where these sprites fire from clouds upwards of 90kms up to lower ionospheric heights.
Hereās a pic from Weatherzone radar today. The Pink to White for most part roughly show over rain activity & often over heavier rainfall, but not necessarily over rainfall areas (see far east off Wollongong coast in pic). Last night these pink blobs were huge, just off the coast of Sydney.
Maybe a technical error, or maybe something else? Pity I didnāt think to use my lightning tracker software last night.
I think the pink merely denotes areas of heavy precipitation, though itās a relatively new addition to the WZ setup.
The link between thunderstorms and Es remains contentious and elusive.
Normally & previously you would only see (eg Pink) in the centre of very heavy stormcells, with proper gradient of colours directly relating to density of rain. Something changed, hence my reference to the far east off Wollongong coast pic as an example where this doesnāt fit. Anyway another mystery.
For sure. Who knows what was happening last night.
An interesting night in the Southern Highlands DX Wise.
First, around 2015-2020 local time. Some Queensland E-Skip, this time 92.7 with āHomecare Sunshine Coastā faded up, that must be Mix 92.7.
On the Tropo front
Newcastle Commercials/Community, Middle Brother ABCs aka the usual northernly stuff with Middle Brother being Good that it almost seeked on the Sony.
Edit 2140: 2RE was also received on 88.9 in a null of Braidwood. Likewise Max FM on 107.3 in a null of 2SER
