Stupid Question on UHF

[AD0DQ]

I own a Yaesu 8800. The UHF band seems fairly dead in my neck of the woods. The other night I was tripping through the 443 frequencies and caught a network that was being run for some Masonic guys. I am in Jefferson City, and I was hearing stations in Conway AR and Dallas TX. They could not hear me.

Here is my question. Is it common for UHF to produce skip on UHF at night?

And, hey, be gentle.... I'm new at this... (as if you couldn't tell from the question, right?)

[K8ERV]

I don't know about skip, and don't know how far apart your stations are.

But for them not hearing you, maybe you were hearing a repeater output but you were not sending on the input? or with a needed tone?

TOM K8ERV Montrose Colo

[NC5P]

FM? It's IRLP or another internet system. There are nodes on those systems that can tie into multiple local access points. There can be stations all over the world but it's internet making the link. Yes, there is tropo scatter on UHF but that would generally be found on 432.100 SSB.

[KC9UDX]

FM? ... tropo scatter on UHF ... would generally be found on 432.100 SSB.

I didn't know the troposphere cared what mode you were using!

[WB2WIK]

FM? It's IRLP or another internet system. There are nodes on those systems that can tie into multiple local access points. There can be stations all over the world but it's internet making the link. Yes, there is tropo scatter on UHF but that would generally be found on 432.100 SSB.

I'd guess IRLP. If you don't have a special access code to tie into it, they won't hear you.
.
It pays to ask, on the repeater, "How do I get into this?" and probably someone will tell you.

Around here, to access IRLP nodes usually requires a club membership; they give you a code you can use, punch it in, and bingo, you're on it.

[WB2WIK]

I didn't know the troposphere cared what mode you were using!

It kinda does, though.

SSB will travel a whole lot farther than FM, if it's tropo scatter or even a duct, simply because the S/N advantage is so monumentally huge. If you catch a really good duct, FM will work. But if it's just forward tropo scatter, FM is usually very marginal for that because the signals aren't strong enough.

I've worked TX from here in L.A. via 432 MHz tropo scatter, never heard anything like that on FM.

[W1VT]

I heard that NC1I would work FM troposcatter in contests--he would point his huge EME array toward NYC and work folks from Massachusetts that "normal" stations couldn't work. It certainly helped that he could rotate the linear polarization of his array to vertical for FM. I believe he ran 48 15 element rear mounted Yagis. Yes, that is four dozen Yagis!

[WB2WIK]

I heard that NC1I would work FM troposcatter in contests--he would point his huge EME array toward NYC and work folks from Massachusetts that "normal" stations couldn't work. It certainly helped that he could rotate the linear polarization of his array to vertical for FM. I believe he ran 48 15 element rear mounted Yagis. Yes, that is four dozen Yagis!

Should work. I remember Bruce K2RTH, back when he lived on Long Island (NY) in the late 60s through the 70s (then he moved to Miami) had a big 2m e.m.e. array and could elevate and rotate that, too. He could work mobiles 250 miles away with it, although that was never the intention. "With enough gain, you can do anything!" seems about right.

[KC9UDX]

I've been doing a *lot* of 2m FM tropo lately. I haven't gotten anything farther than about 200mi yet though.

[K3JEN]

It might not be tropo, could also be signals bouncing off mountains, hills, large buildings, etc.

I set my grandfather in El Paso up with a homebrew j-pole on his roof at about 25 feet for his 5w HT and we found he could be heard simplex 80+ miles away with two mountain ranges in the way, and he was getting into repeaters 150 miles away in New Mexico. After some investigative work, we figured out he was bouncing off some nearby mountains with cliff faces in Mexico that were high enough to do all that. We couldn't ever get it to work on UHF, but VHF is fairly reliable.

Even more, we found that signals into various repeaters would be clearer whenever it rained and the Mexican mountains got wet.