When Its hot out its called Thermo Tropic Propagation
It was not e-Skip.
E skip usually happens at night….
The station from Nebraska was coming in via e-skip, not tropo.
It is EXCEEDINGLY unlikely you heard Nebraska by tropo in New Jersey. 99.44% certain Nick is right.
A few characteristics of
tropo:
- Has no minimum distance. It can affect stations as close as 20-30 miles.
- Can affect any VHF/UHF frequency.
- Can (and usually does) continue for hours.
- Tends to be best at night, peaking around sunrise.
- Happens pretty much any time a stable high-pressure area exists in your area -- regardless of what month it is. If you have warm weather in February, you may well have tropo.
- Maximum distance around 500 miles for inland paths. Longer paths can be possible but are very rare. (somewhat less rare if most of the path is over water)
A few characteristics of
E-skip:
-
Has a minimum distance. Almost never affects paths of less than 500 miles. If you're receiving 300-mile DX, it's tropo.
- Does not affect UHF signals. If you're receiving distant UHF-TV stations*, it's tropo -- E-skip has NEVER affected any TV channel above 13, and skip above TV channel 6 is EXTREMELY rare.
- Usually lasts only an hour or two at a time.
- Tends to be best in late morning (around 10:30-11am) and late afternoon (around 3-4pm). Rare (but not at all unheardof) late at night or in early morning.
- Most likely from late spring (beginning of May) through mid-summer. (end of July) Not affected by weather in your area. (the jury is still out on whether weather at the midpoint of the path has anything to do with E-skip. For example, if you're receiving Chicago, it may be related to severe weather in eastern Ohio. We don't know.)
- Maximum distance around 1500 miles. EXTREMELY rare multihop openings may go further.
So again, if it's UHF and/or it's closer than about 500 miles, it's tropo. If it's VHF-low (channels 2-6*), and/or it's more than 500 miles, it's E-skip. A bit simplistic but if you go by those rules you'll almost always be right.* Note that with digital, stations on channels 2-13 may actually be transmitting on UHF. See Trip's website, mine, or the FCC's to determine a station's actual frequency.
