SKIP is in!

[sp1989]

Searching the VHF low band, picking up NOAA marine forecast from Melbourne, FL on 33.42 mhz, also some EMS traffic with Southern accents and a 3 hour time difference in the 33 mhz area. I remember the first time I ever heard radio traffic from far away coming bouncing in, very exciting hearing stuff thousands of miles away.

[cvrules90]

Does that mean we could monitor far-off trunked systems as well?

[sp1989]

I don't think so, unless it was a VHF trunked system, and then under the most ideal circumstances. It primarily affects HF and low VHF freqs. http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technolo ... 119962.pdf

[brandon]

Thanks for the report. Caught some of this as well on Saturday. Heard fire dispatches on 33 MHz range and 35 MHz some Spanish language taxis. Been a while since we've had some good F2 skip. Using a MONR-31 antenna for low band and it works really good.

[sp1989]

My favorite catch via skip was a sheriff's department somewhere in south Louisiana. The sheriff was at the parish jail, telling one of his deputies to check the main street of the town for a car that was speeding and driving recklessly. There was a lot of back and forth talk between them, about "dat damn kid, he back again!" in heavy Cajun accent, and whenever the sheriff or whoever was at the jail keyed up, there was loud Cajun French music playing in the background on the radio.

[sp1989]

Just so no one gets discouraged, I only had a trunk mount RS antenna thrown up on the roof to hear this stuff. When the skip is in, any antenna that you can pick up low band VHF will work, I guess you could even try stringing up a long wire antenna to a BNC connector and throw the wire out y'alls window. You don't have to have a big fancy antenna array to get some cheap thrills =) In fact, if you have an old CB roof antenna, they work awesome for low band VHF skip stuff. Try it, you'll like it! I had a friend years ago that had a CB radio (he was a long distance trucker and like it so much he bought a base station) and he told me about how excited he was that he talked to a guy from South Africa on his CB radio when conditions were like they are now. In fact, that's how I thought to check, as I was dicking around with the CB search on my scanner and heard tons of traffic..usually I never hear anything on any of the channels locally, but it was alive with stuff. Enjoy, my friends, it's what radios are all about!!!!

[sp1989]

On a related note, for any noobs that are only scanner dweebs, the AM broadcast band is awesome at night....you can hear stations from WAY far away once the daytime solar noise goes away and the clear channel stations go to full power. Try it, you'll like it! DX'ing is most awesome fun! My great grandmother had an ancient SW radio when I was little, a giant thing with multiple dials that showed where to tune every country in the world. I thought it was BS until I tried it and could hear the stations!

[cvrules90]

On a related note, for any noobs that are only scanner dweebs, the AM broadcast band is awesome at night....you can hear stations from WAY far away once the daytime solar noise goes away and the clear channel stations go to full power. Try it, you'll like it! DX'ing is most awesome fun! My great grandmother had an ancient SW radio when I was little, a giant thing with multiple dials that showed where to tune every country in the world. I thought it was BS until I tried it and could hear the stations!

I have actually noticed that on the FM band.

[retiredFD07]

Been getting 33mhz skip since I read this post. Numerous freqs, mostly FD's. Finally was able to ID one this morning. Muskingum County, OH on 33.98, dispatching South Zanesville, Newton, and Roseville to a call on Maysville Pike (I love Google Maps). Radio reference says Muskingum County went to VHF-High two years ago. Apparently they're using their old low band frequency for simulcasting their dispatches. Similar to what Sacramento County, CA does. When they went to 800 TRS they kept their old VHF freq (154.19) to simulcast their dispatches.

It's been a long time since I heard east coast skip, used to monitor this stuff on a daily basis 25 years ago. With the help of Federal funding in the past 25 years, many of the low band users back east have switched to high band repeaters or UHF/800 TRS. Even when I search the low band on my annual visits back east, there's just not much to hear anymore in this spectrum of the band.

<>< Mike

[cvrules90]

There's even a handful of low-band freqs available on the West Coast. The only channels I can think of that use low band are
Ops Net
La Habra Heights VFD
Avalon Fire