Loggings > VHF/UHF Logs, including satellites and radiosondes

NOAA Weather Radio Tropo Logs August September 2018

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R4002:
Since we're more than halfway into August at this point I figured I'd start a new thread:

162.425 - possibly WZ2527 Fredericksburg, VA and another station two stations mixing in  - nearly equal signal strength
162.450 - KZZ28 coming in with maybe WNG538 or WZ2500 underneath, unable to ID weaker station
162.500 - WNG586 Henderson, NC (98 miles / 158 km straightline distance from RX location) SIO 555 at 0645 local time
162.550 - KHB36 (85 miles away) vs. KHB37 (82 miles away) heard Chesapeake Bay forecast

162.400 and 162.525 had unidentifiable signals on them, but they were too weak to get any sort of clues as to which station(s) they were.  162.500 was full quieting at tune-in but suffered from extreme fading as I drove through downtown...at points completely dropping down into the noise and then back up again.  It was SIO 555 for its ID / callsign. 

162.475 is the local NOAA Weather Radio station, WXK65, transmitting from a tower roughly 7-8 miles from my receive location with 1000 watts power output.  It is full scale even with a handheld radio's antenna disconnected.  Very strong transmitter and will mix in with intermod from a VHF paging network on 152.690 MHz, including one site that is less than 2 city blocks from my receive site doing 500 watts TX power from a high-rise rooftop. 

ChrisSmolinski:
Is there a particular time of the day you tend to get reception of distant NOAA stations? I'll give it a try sometime, but with all the channels occupied here by local and and local stations, it could be tough for a DX station to overpower one of them.

R4002:
Early morning (from 0600 to 0700 local time) seems to be the best for me anyway.  I noticed yesterday afternoon (around 1600 local time) however, that KHB36 out of Manassas, VA on 162.550 MHz was coming in full quieting SIO 555, with no trace of KHB37 which usually mixes in (KHB36 and KHB37 are almost equal distance away from me) so there must have been a better tropopheric ducting path due north.  This was right before some thunderstorms rolled through too so unsettled weather seems to help a lot.

ChrisSmolinski:
My knowledge of the mechanism of tropo is sktechy at best, but I understand it is often driven by weather systems, such as fronts and inversions.    It would be fun to put up a directional FM/TV antenna, except since I am in a bit of a valley, not sure how well that would work out.

Josh:
I suspect your beam in the valley will do fine, the ducting will still be there, as well as knife edging effects from the surrounding hills.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knife-edge_effect

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