Posted by kc on July 04, 2001 at 03:09:35:
In Reply to: Re: good VHF/UHF ducting reported for thurs 12:00 GMT posted by Nukeboy1977 on July 03, 2001 at 21:28:02:
: OK my question is. What is ducting? And what do you listen to/for? Thank you.
The explaination above was pretty good actually. For even more information, i believe the site i linked to will explain a little more on ducting and other (bizzare) forms of DX, when/where to expect it, what time of year, etc.
You may also notice that the tropics (gulf of mexico especially) almost always have some pretty high levels of ducting. Some islands use microwave scatter and ducting as a sort-of-reliable communication medium -- instead of satellite and under-sea cable. This is done by putting thousands of watts of microwave energy into a high gain dish on the tallest point of the island, and installing a sensitive receiver. I have yet to find some reliable information on this, but it sounds like some neat equipment. Works both on troposcatter and ducting i believe. Troposcatter gives you that fuzzy in-and-out station from portland (if you were in seattle) and so forth. Its basically radio signals reflecting off of water vapor.
As far as the listening portion goes, just about anything in that wide range of frequencies is up for game. This is typically just broadcast, but a lot of people attempt amateur radio contacts on 2 meters and above.. you might be lucky enough to hear a portland police frequency if you were in seattle, etc.
Check out your TV and radio dial for "new" stations that evening. Chances are, you might see something which came in fuzzy or not at all come in perfect. Out of area/state/country radio stations may flood the dial. 2 meters may be extremely noisy. TV and radio stations may also suffer from mild to extreme amounts of interference.. A year or two back, i saw a stray signal blow away KOMO Ch. 4 -- not sure what it was. Just a couple of weeks ago, I received a mexican border channel 6 for several hours up here in seattle -- full quieting and in stereo during a news broadcast around 11pm. pretty amazing if you ask me!
Its a very slow, fun, and rewarding hobby. It may be like watching paint dry, but its the only thing in radio geekdom that most wives and girlfriends get excited over ;-)
Good luck!