How to DX the 2024 Solar Eclipse!

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Nick Hall-Patch, who shares the following article originally published in the IRCA’s DX Monitor:


2024 Solar Eclipse DXing

by William Scott, WE7W

DXing the mediumwaves promises to be an exciting event on April 8 during the 2024 total solar eclipse.    I’ve been mulling over the DX possibilities a lot lately and have come to some conclusions. I think it boils down to three promising DX scenarios:

  • Scenario 1. For those who live within or very near the path of totality (see Figure 1), I believe best chances of DX would be first to listen to your southwest, along the path where totality is approaching. Darkness will already have happened in that direction, and a certain amount of residual de-ionization of the ionosphere will still remain. After the point of totality passes your location, I would swing my attention to the northeast.
  • Scenario 2. For those living within about 800 km (or about 500 miles) of the path of totality I believe best chance would be a perpendicular path across the totality path to a point roughly equidistant on the other side. This puts the signal reflection point right at the center of the totality path, or the deepest point of darkness.
  • Scenario 3. For those living more than about 800 km from the path of totality I believe best chance would be along a line from your receiving site to a perpendicular intersection to the totality path. This should define the greatest shaded path.

I think that scenarios #1 and #2 have the best possibility for DX.

Figure 1 (Click to enlarge)

Across the U.S. and Canada, from its entry at Texas to its exit through NE Canada and into the Atlantic Ocean, the totality path width varies from a maximum of 199 km at U.S. entry to about 160 km at Atlantic exit, or 123 to 99 miles.

Important to keep in mind – skywave signal strength analysis is based almost entirely on the condition of the ionosphere at the reflection point, not at the receiving site. For single hop propagation, normally the reflection point is at the halfway point to the station along the great circle route.    That 800 km distance from the totality center I wouldn’t hold as gospel. I’m throwing that figure out as a point where scenario #2 may start to transition to scenario #3.

Timing is of the essence for DXing. The shadow velocity exceeds 1000 mph, increasing from 1587 miles per hour at Eagle Pass, Texas to 3176 mph at Houlton, Maine. You may have only minutes to DX.     I’ll be in Rochester, NY at the time of totality, and we are right at dead center. I’ll be scenario #1. My plan is to listen to my southwest initially, where totality is approaching. I’ll be listening particularly for WLW-800 in Cincinnati, OH, WHAS-840 in Lexington, KY, and others along or near that path.

Scenario #2 possibly holds the most promise. Calculate your distance to the path center line and look for stations on a direct line across the totality path and at an equal distance on the opposite side of the path from you. One such scenario might be WSB-750, Atlanta to a reception point in northwestern Illinois, central Iowa, or southern Wisconsin or southern Minnesota. Many possibilities on cross-paths exist here. I feel best results would be with a signal path that crosses the path of totality closest to 90 degrees.

A question was raised about the possibility of DX from Spokane, Washington, an extreme distance from the path of totality. That particular scenario would be scenario #3, more than 800 km to the path of totality. Maximum obscurity should be when northeast Texas (let’s say the Dallas area) is experiencing full totality, as the great circle line to the totality path intersects at approximately 90 degrees to the line at that point. This would be at about 1848 UTC. I would listen for any signals along a great circle path between Spokane to anywhere from the Dallas area and northward.     Obviously, Spokane to Dallas is an extremely long one hop path, at about 2450 km. At that distance, the reflection point is near Denver, which will have a solar obscuration of 65.1% at maximum.

A Dallas area reception would be next to impossible I would think, but there are many more stations along that great circle path one could try for. Closer stations will obviously move the reflection point closer and start to reduce the solar obscurity. I did a scan along that path and there are some 340 stations within 200 km either side of the line of the great circle path between Spokane and Dallas.

A presumed Scenario #4.

Another scenario was suggested by Nick Hall-Patch, that of reception parallel to the path of totality and outside the 100% totality band. The 2017 solar eclipse across the northern part of the U.S. was DXed extensively and produced some interesting results, which are well documented in IRCA Reprints.  Check their document repository here:

http://dxer.ca/images/stories/2019/irca-reprint-index.pdf

Nick reports: “The receptions of KSL-1160 described in IRCA Reprint # G-096 showed the results of 3 DXers listening across the path of the eclipse (Scenario #2), but the fourth, Dave Aichelman, was monitoring KSL from a location parallel to the eclipse path ( sort of Scenario #1?) and got very good enhancement as well.”    We might name this “Scenario #4”.

I checked out # G-096, that documents the KSL reception from the solar eclipse of 2017. It looks like the Dave Aichelman (at Grants Pass, OR) reception of KSL had a mid-path reflection point of about 95% solar obscurity. The distance was 971 km (602 miles). Graphing KSL, I see it has a nice fat low angle takeoff and impressive skywave strength at 900 km, some 1.3 mV/m for that distance. (ed. note: A map of fractional solar obscuration is in Figure 2, easily converted to the percentage figures quoted in this article. )

Better yet, the article indicated Aichelman also received XEPE-1700 across the Mexican border from San Diego too. That was a mid-point reflection obscurity of only about 83% as far as I can deduct from the maps. The distance was 1238 km (769 miles). The mid-path reflection point there was in the neighborhood of 700 km from the central path of totality.

So, DX is indeed possible where both the station and the receiver are off center from the totality path. It’s looking like anything from at least 80% obscurity at mid-path reflection may have some real possibilities, particularly if you are at the end nearest the path of totality. Lower obscurities, perhaps down to 50% or so may even produce results.

Check out these links.

https://nationaleclipse.com/cities_partial.html

https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEpath/SEpath2001/SE2024Apr08Tpath.html

https://eclipse2024.org/eclipse_cities/statemap.html

Using my pattern mapping program which has extensive area search capability, I’ve compiled a list of all US and Canadian stations that fall within the 2024 Solar Eclipse path of ~100% totality. There are 456 stations. Results are drawn from the March 20 FCC LMS database and Industry Canada database. Sorry I don’t have Mexico available.

If you would like this list, download from this link. https://www.mediafire.com/file/125ih5yrmw4puib/2024-eclipse-stations-by-longitude.zip/file

Across the US and Canada, from its entry at Texas to its exit through NE Canada and into the Atlantic Ocean, the totality path width varies from a maximum of 199 km at US entry to about 160 km at the Atlantic exit off Newfoundland, or 123 to 99 miles.   456 stations are found in this eclipse path. I purposely set the path width to 210 km from start to finish. This gives a few km slop on both sides of the 100% totality path for good measure.

Unzip the downloaded .ZIP file, where you will find 3 files. The stations in each file are sorted by longitude, from west to east. This gives us the progression of the eclipse path, with the eclipse starting at the first station in the list and ending with the last station.

File #1 is a simple text file.

File #2 is in .CSV format. You can easily input it to an Excel file.

File #3 is in .HTML format. It includes links to each station’s Google Map latitude-longitude coordinates for the satellite view of the transmitter tower array.

Another link takes you to the FCC AM Query link for that station.  I hope these files are beneficial. There should be many propagation path possibilities outside of this list as well.

(reprinted from the author’s blog at https://radio-timetraveller.blogspot.com/ )

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Further sources of information concerning the eclipse include the following websites:

http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2024_GoogleMapFull.html?Lat=43.66400&Lng=-76.13690&Elv=88.0&Zoom=6&LC=1

(Clicking anywhere on this map page will give all the information you need about obscuration, length of eclipse etc.at a given location).  Also:

https://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/april-8-2024

https://eclipsewise.com/2024/2024.html

Animations of the path of the eclipse versus time can be seen at:

https://eclipsewise.com/solar/SEanim400/2024_04_08_TSE_400px.gif

http://7dxr.com/4all/100km8Apr-movie–Frissell-HamSCI.mp4

The latter is particularly interesting, as it shows the moon’s shadow at 100km height above the earth, an area of special interest to DXers, as it is the lower edge of the E-region of the ionosphere.  Note especially that as the eclipse ends over the North Atlantic Ocean, that there is a temporary darkness path between Europe and North America, because night will already have fallen in Europe.  So will there be blips of TA DX in eastern North America as the eclipse passes by?   Listen, and find out!

Finally, our DX could be of interest to ionospheric physicists also.   The rapidly changing listening conditions will be indicating a similarly turbulent ionosphere, and DXers’ documenting those listening conditions through SDR recordings could provide information that will be useful to scientists who want to gain a better understanding of the Earth’s ionospheric dynamics.

HamSCI is an organization of volunteer citizen-scientists and professional researchers who study upper atmospheric and space physics, and will be interested in examining MW DXers’ wideband SDR recordings made during the eclipse period, and indeed, in having DXers assist with HamSCI’s research. (see https://hamsci.org/eclipse.  Especially if you are an amateur radio operator, there are several other ways that you might also contribute to the project.)

(This first appeared in IRCA’s DX Monitor and is used with permission.   See https://www.ircaonline.org/default.php for club details)

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Why I DX?

…… or as all the locals call it, “Talking to the aliens at the International Space Station.” You might ask yourself, what in the world? Well, I live in a very small, remote bush Alaska village, and my DXing is done outside, yes… even in winter. I’ve been here 3 1/2 years now, and when I first got here, 2 or 3 people seriously thought I was trying to talk to aliens.

I’m kinda “late” to the DXing game… starting seriously in 2014 when I was 30 years old but dabbling in it as young as 5th grade when I thought it was SO COOL I could hear WOWO 1190 Fort Wayne, Indiana, and KDKA 1020 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in central Connecticut clear as a bell at night.

In like 6th grade, my uncle gave me a beautiful tabletop Firestone radio and hooked up a long wire about 100 feet long from my bedroom window to a tree in my yard… wow, WLW 700 Cincinnati every night in Connecticut, I was hooked!

When I discovered how radio waves traveled great distances and at the same time, listening to a really fun oldies station, Big D 103… I was like “This is for me,” and started my quest and desire to work in radio… something about speaking into a radio and being heard 10-20-30-40-50 miles away fascinated me to the umpteenth degree.

That was really before the internet, but I’m 40 now and have been working in radio for 20 years, still DXing mostly every day. Most of my money is spent on food and DXing accouterments.

I’ve had people ask me, especially those who in the small Alaskan village I’m in, “Why, especially in cold weather do you do this?”

I tell them a couple things… I moved up here in part for the hobby, so I’m going to take every advantage I can. There’s too much electrical noise for me to do it from home.

Sitting out here at the park is my “Happy place,” especially after a particularly trying day at work for any number of reasons; this is my place to escape and decompress while being by myself… peace and quiet.

Plus, it’s the magic of how these radio waves travel that got me interested in working in radio. I’ve never lost that childhood magic and wonderment of radio waves and how things work, even though I’m 40. I’m really 40 going on 12 anyways.

I like how when I know when and where to listen, I can hear some amazing things up here in Alaska that many people wouldn’t expect I’d hear at all or as well. There’s something to sitting at the park, especially on a nice summer afternoon, and getting a solid S9+60 or better signal on Radio Nacional de Amazonias 11780 kHz from 12,400 km, opening my radio’s audio filter to 8 kHz bandwidth, and listening to a football match, sounding like I’m right in the stadium or tuned to their music/listener interactive show “Eu de Cá, Você de Lá” hosted by Mauricio Rabelo and sound like I’m tuned in on a 50,000 Watt AM from 50 miles away.

And no, I don’t understand 99.5% of Portuguese, and I only know a few basic words I can speak. I’m way way outside of their target area, but RNA from Brazil being anywhere from “listenable” to “Banging in like a ton of lead bricks” is very common because I’m in just the right place for it.

And I do it all without the internet. Well, OK… I do use the schedule from www.eibispace.de.

All of that combines to fascinate me. And yes, remember… I know how it all works, and I still do a lot of internet streaming, but radio waves continue to fascinate me because it takes some twisting of knobs and fiddling with the antenna to get it just right.

And the fact that it just works and travels through the air is amazing to me.

I live in McGrath, Alaska, which is a community of 275 people that is 355 km NW of Anchorage, completely off the radio system. I manage the daily operations of KSKO Public Radio, an NPR member station, with 8 FM transmitters spread across several hundred miles of Alaska. You can also catch me every Friday on Spaceline Bulgaria’s 5900 kHz transmitter across Europe 2100-2200 UTC with a live relay of my very local KSKO Lunchtime show.

I moved up here for the job, but also knowing that from past experiences living 125 miles north of here 7 years ago, that DX would be amazing. And it’s far exceeded my expectations along with the knowledge and expectations of some of my broadcast engineer friends and station owner friends!

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A shortwave solar eclipse for Europe

Hi I’m FastRadioBurst 23 from the Imaginary Stations crew letting you know about this week’s shows. The first  broadcast is to Europe via Shortwave Gold on Sunday 7th April 2024 at 0900/1300 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then at 2000 UTC on 6160 kHz and 3975 kHz. Sadly Europe will miss out on the eclipse on Monday 8th so we bring you the next best thing, a shortwave solar eclipse with KSOL – The eclipse edition. We won’t leave you in the dark (well probably for a minute or two) and will supply some tunes to bring you a bit of sunshine.

On Thursday 11th April via WRMI we bring you another episode of The Shortwave Music Library at 0200 UTC on 9395 kHz. Expect the unexpected, as DJ Frederick goes through his record collection and pulls out some eclectic tunes!

More on KSOL here!

For more information on the shows please email [email protected] and check out our old shows here.

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Registration for the 2024 “Winter SWL Fest” is now available!

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Cuff, who shares the following announcement:


David Goren (left) and Richard Cuff (right) during the Shindig live broadcast at the Winter SWL Fest.

Registration for the 2024 “Winter SWL Fest” is now available!

The Fest will be May 10th & 11th, 2024.

The Fest will be a combination in-person and Zoom event, and will be held at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania – just north of Philadelphia. We have a block of rooms set aside for the Fest at a special rate; this block will only be available until April 18th, 2024. After that date our special rate may no longer be available, and the hotel itself may sell out.

In-person registration is limited to 65 participants, so register early if you don’t want to get shut out; there is no limit to the number of Zoom participants.

Start your process at the Winter SWL Fest website: http://www.swlfest.com

You can find out more information there, and access the group reservation link for the hotel and also register for either the in-person or the Zoom event.

We apologize if you’re seeing this announcement in multiple places; we wanted to get the news out there as quickly as possible since we have tight deadlines this year.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Richard Cuff and John Figliozzi, co-Festmeisters

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Bandscans from Tokyo via “Radio Radio” YouTube Channel

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Connor Walsh, who writes:

Hi Thomas,
I hope all is well. I think you are a fan of vintage Sony radios, and perhaps blog readers maybe be interested in this YouTube channel, Radio Radio:

https://m.youtube.com/@May_happiness_come_to_you_777

No narration, just a locked-off camera as the radio owner does bandscans in Tokyo. Lots of vintage Sonys and other Japanese brands, along with a few others. It’s a lovely mix of hearing and seeing a dial being twirled in Japan.

All the best,
Connor

I love it!  Thank you for sharing, Connor!

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Only One Week To Go: HamSCI Presents the Solar Eclipse QSO Party!

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Edward Efchak, who shares the following announcement:


ONE WEEK TO GO!  SAVE THE DATE!!

Monday, April 8TH!!  

HamSCI Presents the Solar Eclipse QSO Party – April 8, 2024

Join with thousands of your fellow amateurs as part of the largest crowd-sourced event for ham radio scientific exploration ever!  The SEQP is part of The Festivals of Eclipse Ionospheric Science and is for learning more about how the ionosphere works. Use any mode, any band for all or part of the day!  Participation can be from everywhere – you need not be near the path of the eclipse to contribute valuable data by participating.

Or just get on the air and help provide the data to better understand the ionosphere.

Save the date – Monday, 8 April 2024

Get on the air! 1400-2400 UTC

Do it for science!! Any band/any mode (except the WARC bands)

HamSCI serves as a means for fostering collaboration between professional researchers and amateur radio operators. It assists in developing and maintaining standards and agreements between all people and organizations involved. Its goals are to advance scientific research and understanding through amateur radio activities and encourage the development of new technologies to support this research.

For more information about HamSCI, please visit the HamSCI website (www.hamsci.org) . For more information about the Festivals of Eclipse Ionospheric Science educational opportunities for the amateur community and the public please visit our information pages.

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Office of Cuba Broadcasting programming targeting Ukraine via shortwave

One of the 19 curtain antennas on the campus of the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Site (Click to enlarge)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Macon Dail, Transmitter Plant Supervisor at the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station in Greenville, North Carolina, who writes:

Hi Thomas,

Greenville has recently begun shortwave broadcast to Ukraine to support Cubans in that country. We are broadcasting four hours daily in Spanish with programming supplied by the OCB. We are on 17680 KHz, 1700-2100 UTC MO-FR and 17865 KHz, 1300-1700 UTC SA-SU.

UPDATE: Due to a conflict with NHK on the new summer schedule, our 17680 KHz frequency has been changed to 17690 KHz to provide a clear frequency

Thank yo for the update, Macon! Great to hear that the Greenville site is beaming into Europe again!

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