Saturday morning, June 24th was a good morning for FM DXers looking for TA catches. At least 5 DXers heard RTP Antenna 3, 87.7mhz from Pico de Barrosa, Azores from roughly 8am to 10am EDT. Distances ranged from 2400 – 2700 miles. These fortunate DXers live in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, eastern New York and Ontario, Canada. Both audio files and baseband files were recorded and you may see some of them here in the near future.
Multihop TA DX is not for those using a dipole or portable radio because signals from distances of around 2500 miles or so are weak, mostly hanging around the noise floor, with occasional sharp signal spikes reaching full quieting. One of the best ways to DX this kind of skip is with an SDR using a high-gain outdoor FM antenna where you can monitor the spectrum for any sign of a distant TA signal. A location somewhere on the east coast of North America doesn’t hurt either.
Here are the loggings of Bryce Foster on Cape Cod. You’d think the Azores were in his backyard.
We can tell you that Bryce outdid everyone else. If only Bob Cooper were alive to see this.
The only thing transatlantic about the Aazores from the USA are politics, the island group are more mid atlantic than connected to the European or North African continents. From Larry Horlick they’re nothing more than single Es skip, the only unusual aspect is anyone in North America looking for exotics to the east. 2x Es to England and France are noteworthy but not exeptional giving the peak of the Es season but again it’s more to do with DXers pointing the metalwork in the right direction rather than exceptional conditions.