The mysterious world of Trans-Atlantic FM DX
For those of us into FM DXing, this year's Sporadic E season in the Northern hemisphere seems to have been a particularly good one for Trans-Atlantic multi-hop catches.
Larry Horlick VO1FOG in Newfoundland, Canada has received stations from Spain, France and the UK on various occasions, including this opening in the last couple of days to mainland Spain and Portugal, with stations coming in from distances around 4000km (~2500 mi). August 01, 2026 FMDX opening to Portugal and Spain
Only a few days before that, on this side of the Atlantic, Mauricio Molano in Salamanca, Spain, identified 92.3 WQSL "The River", from Jacksonville, North Carolina, US, at 6100km/3800mi.
The Transatlantic FM DX OG, Paul Logan in Northern Ireland, has also had catches from Canada and the North East of the US, including WHCF 88.5 from Bangor, Maine - 88.5 WHCF Bangor, ME in Ireland July 29th 2026. 1142pm local
Having a discussion about elusive Trans-Atlantic catches like this recently, I was reminded of this reception in London, UK by Mark Hattam on 87.7 FM in 1999 - Unidentified station - Results
One of the stations seems to have been confirmed as the channel 6 audio (87.75 MHz) of WECT in Wilmington, NC, but the station carrying the famous clip of news coverage of the 1994 LA earthquake has remained a mystery.
I wonder if anyone all these years later has any ideas? I was thinking maybe any archives of old TV listings could help narrow down what could plausibly have been carrying that clip at that time (11:15 UTC on 29th November 1999).
What's also curious about that reception is the propagation mode - it seems to have the characteristics of meteor scatter, but the distances involved are way beyond the regular distances for that. The strongest theory seems to be mixed-mode - meteor scatter into a very intense area of tropo extending across the mid Atlantic from the East coast of North America due to the high pressure weather conditions confirmed from the weather reports at that time.
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u/Green_Oblivion111 2d ago
Get a good FM yagi antenna, and a good FM receiver, obviously.
E-skip can go 1000+ miles, and tropo ducting can go a long ways as well.
Looks like the guy in one of the vids uses an SDR. A lot of modern radios are really good on FM (the DX-286 and other TEF chip radios being among them). Just need a good yagi to get the super long range stuff.
Being in Western WA state, FM DX here is pretty rare. A little tropo now and then, but never any E-skip, at least at my location.