Things I’m hearing from the US, is that everything around Huston Texas has been wiped out by tropo today (last night their time). Even the 100kW stations just have static or total loss of signal.
That’d be like every FM station in Sydney or Melbourne being wiped out over the metro area, something I don’t ever remember happening?
If you checkout the Hepburn map, it’s in the pink 9 - 10+ Extreme range. Mexico Gulf/Caribbean Tropo5
So if say I am at Dural I would have no Sydney FM? How far from the tower would I be able to hear FM radio if we had that extreme event?
Despite the cool overcast weather tonight, still getting faint reception of Canberra ABCs and also SW Slopes on 90.7 and 91.5… even 88.3 for a bit, which is rare due to WS’s Camden repeater being a frequent visitor to these parts.
I certainly hope to be proven wrong one of these days, but I strongly doubt that Sydney (or indeed, any major Australian capital city) would ever experience a tropo/DX event like the one Houston got.
That’s actually something unpredictable, if it was in the extreme (as it was in Houston) it could be as little as 5 - 10 kms away?
If you had a tropo signal at a reasonably close power level, & the 2 signals happened to collide at 180 degrees out of phase with each other, you could be literally standing next to the transmitter, & have no signal (would just sound like dead air or some static), as the 2 signals would cancel each other out.
Thinking about areas that are co-channelled with Sydney, Darling Down/Southern Downs comes to mind where the ABC high powers stations match some Sydney frequencies. Brisbane and Newcastle are also co-channelled.
Re. the Houston tropo, does anyone have a link which can substantiate this? I don’t doubt intense tropo happens in the area, but it’s just a little hard to fathom high powered locals being completely wiped out. Of course, it can happen in fringe areas within the licence area, even in Sydney as Matt has demonstrated at Blacktown with 104.9 Muswellbrook. 10 km out is plausible I suppose, as RFB alluded.
A fellow broadcaster posted it in a closed Facebook group.
This is a cut & paste of what he said, then there was a discussion about it.
“Fellow Houston Broadcasters!!
WHAT IS GOING ON???
Everyone big and small 100kw to 5kw, skip, total loss of signal and everything down here. Here i am in the middle of my 60dBu contours getting static and skip, even the other big stations, KSBJ, KHCB, Air1, 93Q, Sunny, even mine, KJIC…
Something atmospheric must be going on for everyone to be messing up, and no its not my radio, I’ve checked on multiple ones”
If you checked the link before for the tropo maps I posted above, you would’ve seen the Extreme levels.
If you click on the link above, scroll to the bottom of the page & click on Tuesdays map, you’ll see the extreme levels. At the time I posted, the most extreme levels were centred more over the land, in Tuesdays map, it’s mostly hugging, but just off the coast.
Currently in Narrabri (Mt Dowe territory) for work. Will do some dxing and post up a bandscan later. Interesting though that 98.3 Nowfm has gone off air. No signal. The various repeaters fed from it must be outputting static.
The Feeder Line & Dish for NOW FM’s STL on Mt Dowe was being replaced late last week & under OH’s The Transmitter had to be turned off because the STL dish is mounted just below the NOW FM Broadcast Antenna. PS Matt the Translators have a Mute on the receiver so they just broadcast a blank carrier when Mt Dowe is Off Air
Thanks Hat! Wasn’t sure if you were still around on MS. I guess that would explain why it sounded like codecs were being used as the STL when I listened on Thursday night.
PS Matt86, Troppo from Armidale to Narrabri is rare as Mt Kaputar tends to shield it. We get troppo from All along the New England ranges from Tenterfield all the way down to Armidale here in Moree quite often plus its quite common to get the big ABC’s from Southern Downs & Darling Downs plus I have heard HOT FM From Warwick a few times as well
It would be giving someone a bit of a power bill for nothing at all…
Oh well, I guess at least unlike Murrurundi it’s not rebroadcasting ONE digital TV’s audio, which to me implies that it’s being fed by a digital Set Top Box that has found itself on the wrong channel…
Wonder if it’s something similar here ie. fed by a Set Top Box that failed or something thus causing no audio?
The fact that no one seems to notice or care is really a bit sad in a multi cultural Australia.
Batlow 92.5 is another one broadcasting ONE HD. It was broadcasting VAST Ch 800 before that (the SBS Chill style instrumental music loop). Said station can be received on and off between Tarcutta and Jugiong on the Hume, as well as line of sight up at Cabramurra.
As another in the DXing fraternity says, “what a waste of watts!”
The ABC & SBS don’t come under ACMA jurisdiction, they each have their own regulations & charter through the parliament. The Broadcasting Act. doesn’t apply to them, all issues have to be done directly through either one.
ACMA will help with an approach to either though.
Approach SBS & tell them, they mightn’t know, if no one’s listening.
They don’t monitor every signal in the network, especially small translators, they only monitor the big/major transmissions.
SBS Broadcast Transmission Technical Support email: ATS@sbs.com.au
If you tell SBS, it’ll be up to them as to fix it or turn it off completely to save money, (though those transmitters are probably running at between 10 - 100 watts, which is light bulb power). They won’t clear the frequencies & give the spectrum back, it’s far too valuable. There’s plenty of unused spectrum banked by the commercial stations around the country, ABC & SBS aren’t going to just let it go.
