OTA: Lake Ontario Area DXing, Tropo, Odd Reception: 2011

[peekaboo]

I have also noticed poorer Buffalo reception lately. In the past the most stable Buffalo station for me has always been CW23 but lately it is weaker or gone completly for hours before coming back. As I write it is raining hard so maybe that is it but I have seen it many other times in rain, snow, cold, or heat. WKBW is usually OK but WIVB is much less relaible. The other Buffalo channels are always next to impossible for me. TO though is almost never a problem for me, but I only watch CBC 5-1 and 25-1 and rarely ctv 9-1, the rest are redundant or boring. I use a less than perfect SBGH indoors 2nd floor south facing in North York. Would die for FOX-29 and WNED!!

[tczernec]

Still bad reception this morning. WIVB (CBS) is now added to the flaky list (on top of City, Sun, and Global, and MyTV). It's cutting in and out - have had the setup for a year and a half without any problems on these channels, so this is one weird weather pattern!

[peekaboo]

Not sure what is going on but while scanning channels via WinTV on my MCE-PC I noticed that although I got the usual lock on RF24 CBLFT 25-1, the channel was NOTadded to the list. Also when I tune to that channel there is no audio or video but the signal meter is normal. Further more my analog TV tunes to analog 25 no problem. I just installed TSReader Lite but I doubt that is the cause. Any ideas??

PS I have a screen cap, but I can not find the "attachment icon" to add it from my album.

PPS FWIW Now TSReader can not lock on CBLFT-DT

[Schmerpy]

Wow, worst reception I've ever seen the past two days. Almost everything Buffalo is gone.

[peekaboo]

OK CBLFT-DT is back for me, odd though that this AM the Signal Meter was steady in the green but the picture was black. Never saw this before.

[peekaboo]

Originally Posted by Schmerpy

Wow, worst reception I've ever seen the past two days. Almost everything Buffalo is gone.

I agree though I at least I'm getting WKBW 7-1 somewhat. One minute it's SNR is high 20's (very unusual) and the next it's gone. Normally it is a stable 18-20 with some minor dropouts. Still can't figure what happened to my almost always stable CW23. I presume you are in ON?

[wilspin]

Yup it was bad for me also. Signals of the big BUF 3 dropped to zero most of Saturday, no mytv or ION either. Some kinf of anti tropo effect.

[majortom]

It's bi-directional, in that CBLT-DT hasn't quite been able to get over the cliff
here in Buf, on the PC Based Tuner for the last few days either. Traditional LCD TV, and CECB tuner's been fine, but barely...not much room to spare lately.

[goforit]

Got some tropo in the Hammer tonight- WNYO is locked in, and many other BUFs are booming.

Wonder if it has anything to do with the coming snowfall...

Interestingly, no jump on the lowly WIVB.

[GeorgeMx]

Originally Posted by goforit

Got some tropo in the Hammer tonight- WNYO is locked in, and many other BUFs are booming.
...

What you are describing is the result of atmospheric ducting rather than "tropo" which normally produces unusual reception at distances of 100s or 1,000s of kilometres. Check Wiki for the explanation of an atmospheric duct.

[wilspin]

49 was much stronger here last night too and 29 made an appearance for a while. Usually I don’t get 29 this time of year. Must have been a long duct. You would think in Hamilton buffallo is alway good, no?

[goforit]

The main BUFs are 24/7 about 40-90% on the meter and no drop outs for me during normal conditions.

Last night, many were 100%, WUTV was 60-70% (usually 30-40%), WNYO was locking in, when usually it's absent in the winter, however, WIVB showed no change from the usual 40-50%.

[GeorgeMx]

Originally Posted by wilspin

49 was much stronger here last night too and 29 made an appearance for a while. Usually I don’t get 29 this time of year. Must have been a long duct.

The duct forms across Lake Ontario. If the water is open (no ice), heat transfers to the air and creates a temperature gradient that's warm at the bottom and cooler with higher altitude. The duct can exist along the length of the Lake if it is all clear of ice.

I looked at your channel 29 (physical 14) path assuming your Rice Lake location as Gore's Landing which has a bearing of 24.5 degrees from WUTV. The directional antenna data indicates that WUTV radiates about 130 KW toward Rice Lake with a path length of about 134 km. The elevation profile shows a ridge on the path to WUTV about 110 metres higher than the elevation of Gore's Landing. WUTV radiation centre is 490 metres above mean sea level (RCAMSL) while WNYO is 738 metres RCAMSL with 198 KW non-directional and a path length of 150 KM. While WNYO is 16 KM farther away, the radiation center is 248 metres higher and almost 70 KW more powerful which results in better reception for the Rice Lake area. By the way, all the data is available from the FCC web site and the bearings and distance came from Google Earth using the ruler tool.

Perhaps you have all this information already but since I had taken the time to investigate I thought people might be interested.

[wilspin]

Thanks for the fantastic answer Georgemx. Gore's is just east of me so you are quite accurate.

[ota_canuck]

This is not antenna related in any way, but it certainly may be of interst to Tropo watchers for the very near future.

There will be a strong ongoing solar wind stream blowing around Earth over the next few days. Add that event to the impending 480thousand year polar [magnetic pole] reversal that is currently rapidly ramping up and creating gaps in the earths magnetic sheild. During this polar reversal over the next 24 months the earth will at times experience gaps within various false north poles that may allow those stronger solar winds to reach the earth and may cause some very strange electro magnetic events.
Can you imagine 'aurora light shows' happening over Tahiti.

Google 'polar reversal' and read some of the intersting theories about this cyclical polar magnetic event.

The Sun's polar shift has already occurred. The earth is nearing it's polar flip very soon, possibly during the next several months. Here is some pretty interesting explanation of the earths anticipated multiple polar events that may occur during this very rare polar reversal.

They've also learned what happens during a magnetic flip. Reversals take a few thousand years to complete, and during that time--contrary to popular belief--the magnetic field does not vanish. "It just gets more complicated," says Glatzmaier. Magnetic lines of force near Earth's surface become twisted and tangled, and magnetic poles pop up in unaccustomed places. A south magnetic pole might emerge over Africa, for instance, or a north pole over Tahiti. Weird. But it's still a planetary magnetic field, and it still protects us from space radiation and solar storms.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/loo...eticfield.html

This could at some point create disasterous consequences within our hi-tech electro magnetic dependence for communication and power grid control. During previous polar reversals, earthlings did not rely on electro magnetics for power or communication.
http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~glatz/geodynamo.html