FM Broadcast Band Dxing

The place to discuss long distance TV and Radio Reception. Equipment, Antennas and anything to do with the art of DX.
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Tinman
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FM Broadcast Band Dxing

Post by Tinman »

This is the first time I've been able to post in this section. :lol:

I decided to spend the day in Mablethorpe on Thursday (28 June) and whilst there I decided to have a tune about the FM band as I normally do just to have a nosey at what stations I could here in that area.

I don't know weather it was to do with the location I was parked in as I was more or less on the sea front where I was parked or if it was the unusual weather conditions that day as some areas including Mablethorpe were sunny and really warm where as other areas there were huge rain and thunderstorms but there were several stations coming through from abroad. :shock:

I managed to get some video clips of some of the stations I could receive as I tuned manually through the FM band. I did also try to do a scan of the DAB band as well to see if that was also being affected but by that time conditions seemed to have dropped right off to the point of FM being back to normal again. Did keep trying on and off through the rest of that day and even tried again after having a drive up to Cleethorpes late on in the afternoon and having a scan of the bands there but things didn't seem to pick back up again.

I'm not too sure of the locations of the stations I received but two of the stations came in strong enough for the radio to decode the RDS signal they were transmitting. (Antenna 2 and RR) I did a search on the internet for these stations and found that they were broadcasting from Portugal.

The video clips I did of what I picked up are here. The equipment I used was just the radio I have in the car (Clarity DAB/FM/AM unit) and the cars standard roof mount antenna. It did also help that I have the radio running through a graphic equaliser which helped improve the sound a little.


8) Dave 8)
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hal8000
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Re: FM Broadcast Band Dxing

Post by hal8000 »

Good cataches, I was there the same day and my Kenwood Car Radio got some
strange RDS ID's
T S F
Klara
Antenna 1
RNE 1

I think the Antenna station may be same as yours but Radio National Espagne was coming through RNE, not sure where Klara or T S F are from.
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Tinman
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Re: FM Broadcast Band Dxing

Post by Tinman »

Sounds like it could be the sister station to the one I picked up. The only other I got which was strong enough to get the RDS signal from was RR which when I looked up the name and frequency it was being received on up turned out to be. Rádio Renascença.

I can only assume with the direction most of them seemed to be coming from it was the storms causing the good conditions on the band. Not too sure as Dxing on that part of the band isn't something I've done a lot of. Might have look into it a bit more now. :D


8-) Dave 8-)
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M0MTH
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Re: FM Broadcast Band Dxing

Post by M0MTH »

used to really enjoy fm dxing when i was younger :)
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Dagnabbit
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Re: FM Broadcast Band Dxing

Post by Dagnabbit »

I used to drive around monitoring empty channels around 87.6 in the sporadic E season, got some really crazy language stuff coming through from what sounded like the other side of the Med. When it's there, it's strong - any reasonably decent car setup will do.
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Re: FM Broadcast Band Dxing

Post by M0MTH »

^oh yeah forgot about all that, used to pick up some interesting stuff down there. Also used to be things to find between 96 and 102, and above 106 also :)
I remember picking up stations from france, netherlands, germany, other european countries, ireland, scotland, wales and all over the uk just on a humble little portable radio, all before I understood anything about propagation, was quite amazing at the time :D
hal8000
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Re: FM Broadcast Band Dxing

Post by hal8000 »

FM Dxing is either troposheric or Sporadic E. The tropospheric increases distances a couple of hundred miles,
sporadic E, is when the sun is most active and the E layer becomes ionized, distances received can be thousands of miles. (Hope I've got that the right way around).

Sometimes the disturbance lasts a few minutes to a few days, and its a matter of tuning in at the right time.

The best FM DX I've had was Croatia, HRT-HR-1 and HRT-HR-2 (Croatia) heard from Skegness, Lincolnshire
on a Citroen Car Radio with RDS. Got sufficient signal to pull the RDS ID, this was back in June 2003.
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Re: FM Broadcast Band Dxing

Post by acl777 »

I was pleased to get Finnish fm radio this SpE season. I also managed to get Icelandic and Ukrainian tv. As far as tropo goes its been poor these last few months but I'm lucky enough to get Dutch above the noise level under flat conditions at my location in Norwich on fm.
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