With the advent of this big-ass heatwave in the USA and Canada this mid-July, tropo and ducting at late nights and very early mornings DX enhancements in the VHF and UHF bands. Just last night at 1AM my time, after Sporadic "E" died out on 6M, 10M, 11M, etc., I tuned around 2M, 222MHz, and 440MHz, and found no activity. Down where I am in West Virginia the late night repeater talkers seem to come out in the winter. So, I checked the weather radio FREQ's up at 162MHz. What FREQ usually barely come-in normally from +50 miles were bangin' in at an S5 on just a discone antenna. I didn't check the SSB portions of 2M, 432MHz, or 1296MHz, but will the next night. I miss DX'ing analog TV stations, but I've heard of DX'ers RX'ing digital TV stations with their HDTV's, DVD recorders, or 8VSB to analog TV converter boxes with a decent outside TV antenna. What sucks is today you have to put those units in station scan to do that, and thus miss fading, or weak stations. With analog, my best DX TV was a GE B & W machanical tuner from the early 1980's. I was able to DX analog TV with just the VHF rod antenna and the 300 Ohm loop! (I miss that.) Don't forget FM radio DX'ing! Don't have a good FM tuner? Bet ya do!!! Out in the driveway you have a decent FM receiver with a 1/4-wave antenna on it. I've DX'ed quite a few FM stations with a car stereo in the vehicle. And don't think that FREQ's from 30MHz to 60MHz are out of the mix! I've done tropo 6M contacts before on 6M DX repeaters and talked to a dude over 100 miles away one early morning on a 6M Halo antenna, and so was I at the time. So, let's try DX'ing VHF and UHF!
