HF is WEIRD

Good morning evening or afternoon cyberspace!

This post is gotta be a little unhinged ham but i think i can live with that.

SO i was sitting last evening and lets the doges for there evening restroom break. And after i let them out, i checked the weather and learned that the weather was supposed to be clear till tommorow late morning.

So to fill you in which this will make sense later. For the last 4 days it has been raining. LOTS AND LOTS OF RAIN some places such as indy getting 5 inches of rain!

Now i havent been able to play radio for the last 4 days at least om HF because i really dont have a proper grounding setup. So i lower my endfed halfwave when the sky gets spicy.

So at the peak time of 9:00pm i flipped on my 891 and spun the dial.

Hearing a station in a booming signal 5-9+20. It was a rather friendly sounding women which was very exciting! Its super cool to see some ladys on the bands.

But anyhow the women was saying "special event station, indiana state fair"

I sat there for a solid minute waiting for her to finish her qso because i didnt believe it!

HOW ACTUALLY HOW IM less than 100 miles from indy which is were the fair was happening and hearing this station?!?

Next go around, i threw out my call and got a 5-9+10.

I stuttered and got tongued tied which i briefly apologized for.

Because i was just so utterly confused!?!

This was 7mhz 40 meter band, you know the DX band. Known for long path overseas contacts of 1,000 miles plus.

I was utterly boggled, i wasnt running a vertical antenna and i should not be able to talk to indy!

I did some research and it would seem the phenomenon i was experiencing was ground wave propagation. Basically super low Frequencys like 80meter allow for 100-300 miles during daylight.

The way this works is the radiated energy has 2 paths.

Skip which is where it goes into the atmosphere and bounches down. Which is the common and most reliable path HF is known for.

Then there is ground wave propagation, where your radiated signal is hugging the ground.

This is very uniefficent and doesnt really happen unless over salt water or VERY high power.

Well because for the last 4 days Indiana has be DOUSED in water.

(So much there has been some places with major flooding)

So the ground is SOOO utterly moist its allowing better efficiency of ground wave propagation.

The magic of radio waves some-day's feels like black magic.

But hey, i appreciate you reading my ramblings.

And try to keep yourself a float in these flooded times 73's!