yodercrawler55

Alright so it was hella weird yesterday. My buddy and I just got done eatin and were drivin home when we started to pick up alot of other people on our channel (28). There was one guy from North Cali, Arkansas, Georgia, Oregon and Wa. I guess on the right conditions the shot cb radios can travel thousands of miles. Been readin up on it, I had never knew that so if one of these sunny days you get people claimin their from a long ways away, its a good possibility

leebee

yup, its called 'skip', signal bouncing off the upper atmosphere. we get the good ol' boy from the south way up here in ontario some days!

lee

yodercrawler55

yea its hecka weird I think, i guess some people have charted and determined when the radio waves skip.

olharleyman

As the summer gets closer it will get stronger and the best time for SKIP is around noon time

yodercrawler55

I'll have to keep that in mind

4Crawler

iTrader: (3)

Yes skip helps, but those guys were also probably running some high power linear amps as well At least that is the case if you are unable to reply back to the person you hear. I used to work on a fire lookout tower and with my antenna about 120' up in the air on top of a mountain, I used to be able to reach out a few hundred miles with good conditions and could typically get 50 miles or so.

algranger

YEs i've never heard of this but i was cruising through Yelm, WA yesterday and got some guy from Sac. Cali

olharleyman

Not necessarily I had a short hop (2 min convo) from Maryland to Kentucky on my non amped radio last Thursday , also if you are close to water like a bay , sound , harbor or any big body of water it will help carry the signal.

dropzone

iTrader: (6)

I liked the 20 watt HF radio I carried in the Army (except for the frigging weight). throw out 600 feet of wire from a Low Profile antenna and you can talk to the other side of the planet if the Ionosphere is cooperating..that an no sunspots If it was on the right azimuth we would us rail road tracks we carried 5 different kinds of antennas..Long Range Surveillance Team

skipzone is also affected by the frequency, type of antenna, take off angle...a ton of factors..not just time of year...

olharleyman

skipzone is also affected by the frequency, type of antenna, take off angle...a ton of factors..not just time of year...[/QUOTE]

That is true and the cycle for skip is coming in and with a nice hi vertical antenna skip should be easy to grab around noon during the summer according to all the info I keep receiving from the AARL for 10 and 11 meter.

Merlin

if you want to hear lots of skip year round, check out the bowl channel (6). that's usually where the big boys play.

you can also get skip on channel 11, more so people talking and general commo than actual trying for skip or trying to walk on each other like on the bowl.

when sunspot activity is high, certain locations seem to benefit more than others. australia generally comes in very clear in the summer months, and some japanese and mexican skip.

Merlin

ayup. if we don't go up the mountain to shoot skip, one of the other popular places is down by the ocean. people run ground cables from their mobiles to the water, and just throw them in. salt water grounds nicely, from what i understand.

people have made contact with the mainland and southern states with a couple hundred watts, vs. the people who run thousands of watts trying to key up from a pineapple field.