Eskip This Season

[Mike-CT]

This will be a short post.

May 26th
12:50pm NE with a weak-fair KELN 97.1
KPNO 90.9 also heard. Not much of an opening. This was one of those I-wouldn't-care-if-I-missed-it type openings

May 27th
7:30 - 9:30pm to IL,IA,MN,WI with the muf up to about 102.5
This was a decent opening.

May 31st
11:45am in the car from MS and AL. WKZW 94.3 MS and WZEW 92.1 AL. Gone when I got home. Yawn.

June 20
6:20pm - 7:40pm from IA, MB (Winnipeg--CITI 92.1), MI and WI. Four new ones out of a total of 11 logs. Fair opening.

July 7th
8:20-9:00pm from AL and AL. No new logs this time. Somebody better tell some of these stations about RDS sometime. Trying to ID a station playing classical music on the edu band with no breaks is a waste of valuable time.

July 9th
5:30 -8:00pm from South FL. Mostly Key West (93.5) and some Miami area FMs (93.9/94.9), the Gator 98.7, WAFZ 92.1 Spanish as well as 90.9 Genesis FM. This one gets a C-. TV logged WPBT/WESH/WFOR/WUFT 5 and Miami 6.

A D- for the season so far.

[cg41386]

As I stated in the other post, this season has been nothing short of horrible for me...

[KW4RZ]

It's been a fairly good year for me. But I've been more active this year than any other so I have caught most every opening that there has been into NW Florida. What I've noticed is the intensity of most every E skip opening this season has been low. I've only observed the MUF excede 108 MHz once this season. A typical opening has been less than 1 hour long, or pops in and out of the FM band over a longer period.
Pat Dyer notes that this year has been pretty poor, but last year had less Es overall. Even including the big event on July 6, 2004.

My Es summary similar to Girard's calendar but with details:
http://www.geocities.com/kw4rz/2005Es.html

[cg41386]

Pat Dyer notes that this year has been pretty poor, but last year had less Es overall. Even including the big event on July 6, 2004.

For me, I judge an E-skip season based on the intensity of the opening and the distance of the stations that I receive. While there were only two openings of note last year for me, the ones that I did have were unique- the first one (July 5), I received all Canadian stations, and the second one (July 6), is probably the most intense opening I've experienced to date.

[Russ-PA]

I agree about the low intensity. I've not had any really overwhelmingly strong signals yet as I have in prior years. This year's have been weaker and less stable, although more numerous. Since the prime portion of a normal season is now quickly ending, I expect only a few similar openings the reaminder of the summer. And decent tropo ( other than the run-of-the-mill stuff down the coast to Tidewater VA ) is also down this year.

[KW4RZ]

One thing that I follow is the solar activity from spaceweather.com.
Solar activity has been rather low this season and Es has come and gone in rather dull openings.. One thing that I often notice is following periods of active solar conditions (like the last 2 days) the ionosphere often "rebounds" occasionally with intense results when the sun settles down for extended periods. Solar flares tend to eliminate Es, notice the last two days compared to the graphs on spaceweather.com.. After the sun settles back down to green bars on the graph we often get amazing Es. But not always! It's hard to say if there is any correlation but I have seen some kind of relation. So perhaps tomorrow or after the sun settles again there will be some skip!
I noted that last year there were frequent solar flares and most of the season was in a "wiped out stage" But July4-11 was settled and that's when we got the best Es. We are due. Especially you folks in the Northeast!

[Dave-OR]

Looking over my loggings I'd have to give this season an A-. I had 4 multi-hour, top-of-dial FM openings, plus 4-5 other short openings. I added Arkansas and Montana to my Es lists, had some long-haul Es (~15 stations at 1500+ miles), had confirmed double-hop to Mexico and unconfirmed to AL/GA. I also managed to hit most of the areas I'm open to from here (and I missed one opening that would have filled in a big "hole" this year - SD/MT/SK/MB).

If the openings had been spread out over the entire season, I probably wouldn't hesitate to give it an A, or even an A+. 350 or so new loggings this Summer. But because it's been d-e-a-d since July 2 or so, I can't really say I'm very happy at the moment! I haven't even wrangled a channel 2 logging out of the air in the past week.

Still - I'm pretty psyched, and not ready to quit the hobby yet :-). Bring on the Ms, and the Au this Winter. Oh, and more Tr too. How about Reno via Tr?

Dave

[Danny]

There has been some Es here this month. In fact, the MUF made it up to channel 5 for a few minutes Monday.

The way I rate an Es season is by considering the number of days with Es, the number openings per day, the length of openings, the MUF of openings, the strength of the signals, whether the skip moves or sits in one geographical spot for long periods, and the variety of directions received. Very short or very long skip is a bonus.

Four remarkable events pushed the season up to the "B" level: Decoding KVBC-DT-2 Las Vegas at over 1200 miles; receiving KBEJ-2 Fredericksburg at 327 miles; receiving my sixth station from California (KTLA-5 Los Angeles), at over 1400 miles; and recording an animated XHQRO-2 Cancun ID, with a good signal, that I've been chasing since December 31, 2003.

Without the events mentioned above, this season would be a "C" at best.

Danny
Shreveport, LA

[mhawk]

The big 4+ hour western FM opening of 5/31 "made" the season for me. This opening hit some areas that I hadn't heard very often before (Salt Lake City), and some areas that I hadn't heard since moving back to Omaha 3 years ago. If I hadn't caught this opening, I'd be calling '05 a C- or D+.

This may have been the worst July I've experienced (even worse than '02), but some of that was due to my not being in town often.

I'm still holding out hope for one more opening - I've had some good August openings in the past. In fact, in '01, I had about 6 hours of FM Es, all after 8/15!

Other '05 FM highlights included:

5/21 - 30 minutes to NY, QC, ON
6/5 - 1 hr of Es in/out to S. TX, Nuevo Leon, and FL.
6/15 - 30 minutes of Es to S TX and Mexico
6/18 - 45 minute opening to UT/ID/NV, 1.5 hour opening to CT, NY, NJ, VA, NC
6/20 - 1 hr opening to ID, UT, NV that began with 10-15 minutes to CT, NY, NJ.
6/21 - 1 hr in/out of FM to SC, AL, FL; evening 1.5 hours to TX
6/30 - About 15 minutes to FL
7/9 - 7/17 - Out of town - didn't check radio
7/18 - 10 minutes to FL/GA
7/25 - 7/29 Out of town - didn't check radio

[Mike-CT]

Picking up where I left off on 7/9....

7/18
1700-2000 Es from Florida again , muf up to 105.5 here

7/29
1700-2200 Es from Florida again, but this time moving up through MO and ending up in MN. Not a great opening by any means.

I missed an opening (to FL, where else?) a couple of evenings earlier by being up in ME and not here.

All in all, I still give it a D. Plus with all the iboc around here, I would rate my location here in CT as a D...and it was an A- when we first moved here.

I typed up a report for FM North. A whole season on almost one sheet of paper...how pathetic. Times change.