Nick’s Signal Spot is a new feature in which Nick Langan explores RF signals, propagation, new equipment or related endeavors.
How far can you actually hear an FM radio signal?
I am not talking about streaming, of course. I mean actually on the radio, and listening to a station from Tampa in Washington state, or catching a signal from the dunes of Cape Cod in the desert of Nevada.
Or how about across the Atlantic, with FMs from North America traveling to Europe.
Is any of this actually possible? Yes!
In fact, at the time I write this, the 2025 Sporadic-E season is getting into full swing. There was quite a bit of activity in eastern North America on June 3.
Intrigued? I’ve got some historical precedent and examples to share!
Comparisons to skywave
If you’ve ever picked up 1030 WBZ(AM) from Boston while driving through Ohio after sunset, you’ve experienced skywave propagation — the nighttime phenomenon that makes long-range AM listening a regular reality.
But long-distance reception on the FM band? That’s much rarer. Still, it happens, typically a dozen or so times each year from any given location, thanks to atmospheric conditions known as Sporadic-E, or “E-Skip.” We’ve touched on this before in small doses.
On a summer afternoon, it’s not uncommon for 94.9 WZTA(FM) from Miami Beach to be heard loud and clear in Binghamton, N.Y. — about 1,100 miles away.
But what about the holy grail of FM radio reception? Double-hop E-Skip.
For long-distance radio listeners, or DXers, like me, that’s what it’s all about.
I remember the exact dates and times of the double-hop receptions I’ve had — perhaps only matched by my recollection of moments from Philadelphia Eagles playoff games. One catch I’ll never forget was from my location in Tabernacle, N.J., on June 19, 2018: 91.5 KJZZ(FM) from Phoenix, at over 2,100 miles.
In this reception, what I believe to be the station on the “first-hop,” KANU(FM) Manhattan, Kan., is mixing with KJZZ on the “second-hop.”
Understanding Sporadic-E
How does this happen?
In 1962, George Jacobs wrote about Sporadic-E propagation in CQ Magazine, describing it as a result of ionized patches in the Earth’s atmosphere. They form more frequently between mid-May and mid-August.
These patches, or “clouds,” can reflect radio waves at much higher frequencies than the regular E or F layers of the atmosphere. While the standard E-layer rarely produces maximum usable frequencies above 22 MHz, Sporadic-E can push well beyond that.
Jacobs described Sporadic-E clouds as thin, ionized areas roughly 50 to 100 miles in diameter. He noted that they can support propagation on frequencies up to 60 MHz and occasionally past 100 MHz. Maximum usable frequency into the 2-meter amateur radio bands does occur and it can reach even higher. There’s been at least one 220 MHz Sporadic-E contact.
The usual distance limit for single-hop E-Skip is about 1,400 miles. “Propagation beyond this distance does not often occur by way of Sporadic-E,” Jacobs wrote, “because of the remote possibility of clouds being present over such a large area necessary for multi-hop propagation.”
By contrast, F2-layer propagation, more common during solar cycle peaks, typically dominates long-haul HF communication below 30 MHz. Unlike the fleeting and patchy nature of Sporadic-E, F2-layer openings follow broader solar and diurnal patterns, making them somewhat easier to anticipate. F2 rarely reaches into the FM band. Here’s an example of it reaching 47.9 MHz, allowing XQB-010 from Santiago, Chile to be heard in Florida, at a distance of 4,150 miles.
One single-hop of E-Skip can’t support distances like Chile to Florida. But if multiple Sporadic-E patches align, as Andrew VK3FS describes, a signal can reflect off the Earth after the first hop and bounce back to the atmosphere for a second. That’s double-hop.
This is far more common on lower frequencies. Most skip clouds simply don’t support a high enough maximum usable frequency to reach the 88–108 MHz FM band.
The 6-meter amateur “magic band,” between 50–54 MHz, sees frequent multi-hop activity. Some operators have worked all 48 states and beyond. There are plenty of confirmed contacts between North America and Japan, for example.
The FM broadcast band? That’s a taller order. But not impossible.
You also cannot exactly determine how a signal arrives at your receiver. We debate this in DX circles all the time. Is a 1,500-mile log automatically double-hop? Not necessarily, particularly if you are receiving a signal from a place like the Caribbean, where single-hop paths have been known to extend further over the open ocean waters.
But that’s what makes E-Skip so intriguing. The mystery of it all!
Early sightings
Back in the analog TV era, E-Skip was commonly seen during the summer on Channels 2 through 6. Those VHF TV channels are lower than the FM broadcast band in the frequency spectrum – between 59–87 MHz – so they are more likely to be affected by E-Skip. A 1952 Popular Science article titled “Kansas TV Fan Gets Both Coasts” chronicled Gene Smith, living in Hoisington, enjoying low-VHF on his tube from Detroit, San Francisco, New York and Mexico City.
Bob Cooper — something of a legend — was born in 1938 and moved to California in 1953. From Fresno, he logged east coast TV stations via double-hop, including WBZ, WCBS, WNBC, WRGB and WLWT, according to records from the Worldwide TV-FM DX Association (WTFDA).
On June 5, 1955, Cooper logged “dozens” of VHF TV stations from Boston to Washington, D.C., and inland to Ohio and West Virginia — all in one morning. “A Sunday morning never to be duplicated,” he wrote.
Inspired by the Popular Science article, Cooper spent much of his life chasing long-distance TV and FM signals. From Oklahoma, he later logged 93.7 WJIT(FM) from San Juan, Puerto Rico at more than 2,250 miles away. He’d make similar observations living in the Cayman Islands and New Zealand.
Another pioneer and WTFDA member, Bob Seybold of Dunkirk, N.Y., logged analog TV signals from Anchorage, Alaska (Channel 2 KENI), and even Brazil — Sao Paulo’s PRF-3 and Rio’s PRG-2 — on Aug. 7, 1956.
If you are curious, today’s VHF low digital TV signals can be picked up via E-Skip – you can see real-time decodes at RabbitEars.Info – but the threshold to decode a DTV signal makes confirmed receptions much more difficult.
Double-hop FM logs took longer to materialize. But they did.
Tracking FM DX records
The WTFDA maintains records of all-time distance records logged by its members.
In the 1980s, west-coast DX’ers John Jefferson of Pleasanton, Calif., and Jim Pizzi in Orcutt, Calif., both logged FM signals from the opposite coast of Florida — over 2,200 miles away.
In July 2006, DX’ers in western New York heard FM stations from Nevada and Arizona. Dave Williams in central Oregon received 93.9 WKYS(FM) from Washington, D.C., again, double-hop.
In other years, logged receptions included from Illinois to Puerto Rico and from New England into Mexico.
Could this stretch further — across the Atlantic?
The dean of double-hop
Paul Logan of Lisnaskea, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, is widely considered the maestro of multi-hop FM DX.
On June 26, 2003, Logan became the first to log a verified transatlantic FM signal: 97.5 WFRY(FM) in Watertown, N.Y. — over 3,000 miles away.
Exactly six years later — June 26, 2009 — he broke his own record by receiving 90.7 WVAS(FM) from Montgomery, Ala., more than 4,000 miles in distance.
This is the audio clip Logan made that day — the first part is taken from the WVAS webstream, and the second part is the signal he heard in Ireland of host Marcus Hyles. Logan’s signal is far from strong — but considering the distance involved, that should be no surprise.
That day, he logged several other eastern U.S. stations.
Logan had over 6,700 logs via E-Skip alone in 2021 — including once again traversing the Atlantic to as far away as 92.9 WEZQ(FM) from Bangor, Maine.
In 2010, Mike Fallon in East Sussex, U.K., joined the exclusive transatlantic club, hearing 88.7 La Voz de la Luz from the Dominican Republic — a distance of 4,300 miles.
It is unclear as I write this what the all-time FM E-Skip distance record is. It’s a query I’ve put out to the creators of FMList, which is the site many DX’ers use to keep track of their catches.
In terms of strictly over land, Ivan Abilev, in Russia, might have the most distinguished log, with his catch of 90.7 FM from Wuhan, China in 2021 – a distance of more than 3,000 miles. In 2024, he logged Vietnam and China at even longer distances.
New tools and exceptional seasons
By 2014, the use of software-defined radios revolutionized long-distance FM reception. More DXers began logging signals.
[Related: “SDR: The Next Level of Shortwave Radio Listening”]
There are three reasons why SDRs changed the game as far as FM DX is concerned:
- The ability to record swaths of the spectrum. E-Skip openings, as we’ve discussed, are short in duration. Now, you can basically “DVR” an opening and carefully review what came in, a given frequency at a time, in 10 MHz swaths or more.
- Many SDRs are solid receivers with good front-end overload rejection, a must for DXing in urbanized areas. Features such as the combined diversity mode of the SDRPlay RSPduo and the signal canceller in the Airspy SDR# software allow local signals to be potentially nulled.
- Software applications like RDS Spy have proved very beneficial to DXers, offering quick RDS PI code decodes which can produce easy confirmation of stations heard.
The open-source community of FMDX.org, through the TEF6686 chip firmware updates and their vibrant Discord group, has only leveled the playing field further.
Combine technological breakthroughs with a very active Sporadic-E season like 2021 and we saw incredible results.
DX’er Kyle in Moses Lake, Wash., caught 90.5 WBVM(FM) from Tampa in June of that year.
Later, on July 13, many East Coast DXers logged FM stations via multi-hop from South America, including as far south as Guyana.
That same season marked the first known transatlantic E-Skip reception in reverse: Bryce Foster, on Cape Cod, Mass., received a station from the Azores. I host a podcast with Bryce, the VHF DX Podcast, and we chronicled his catches in multiple episodes.
In 2022, Foster one-upped himself, logging 87.8 Radio France — the first confirmed reception of mainland Europe from continental North America. The Cape Cod DX maven has also logged Iceland and Portugal on FM.
Perhaps the most prolific U.S. multi-hop FM DXer is Randy Zerr (KW4RZ) of Goldfield, Nev. In that 2021 season he logged 95.1 WXTK from Cape Cod — a distance of over 2,500 miles.
The clip is mixed with CKUE(FM) from Ontario — a lengthy catch in itself from Nevada, followed by how WXTK actually sounded from Cape Cod for the same reception.
A year later, he heard one of my locals in New Jersey – the well traveled 97.3 WENJ(FM) in Millville, also heard by Logan in 2009 from Ireland!
In 2023, check out these double-hop signals Zerr logged from North Carolina and Tennessee, including a translator on 92.9 FM from Statesville, N.C.
To the north of the border, Larry Horlick (VO1FOG) in Coley’s Point, Newfoundland, deserves mention. He has multiple FM receptions of the United Kingdom, Portugal, Algeria and Morocco.
But it’s still really uncommon!
Loyd Van Horn hosts the DX Central livestream. I joined him in May for a spirited conversation on FM DX I’d encourage you to check out.
Van Horn produced a treasure trove of FM DX data. He analyzed seven years (2017–2024) of FMList logs from North American DXers.
“The rarest of the rare,” he wrote, “these are receptions that exceed 1,600 miles from the DXer.” While some could be long single-hop, “the vast majority of any receptions beyond 1,600 miles are likely some form of double-hop.” Such logs represent just 1.3% of all receptions.
“Reported by only 12.5% of all DXers,” he noted, “these extended distances are not even experienced by the vast majority of listeners.”
Van Horn’s data shows July is the peak time for double-hop events.
Where you DX from matters, too. It’s harder to tap into continental U.S. multi-hop DX from the middle of the country, simply because geography doesn’t work in your favor. Both coasts are “too close!”
But even still, there are targets in Central and South America and Canada that might be within reach. Pat Dyer (WA5IYX), who dedicated his life to studying Sporadic-E, logged Massachusetts and Maine from San Antonio, certainly what would be considered double-hop.
How do you double your fun?
I’ll start by saying that in a metro area, say within 20 miles from a major transmitter farm, while double-hop is not an impossible endeavor, it would take extraordinary conditions to manifest.
Double-hop signals are typically not strong in strength, they occur in narrow windows — and they vanish just as fast. It can all come together for only a minute or two. This is where an SDR is critical — they are capable of recording swaths of the band at a time.
Most DX’ers who have heard multi-hop use a yagi antenna. It doesn’t have to be the most sophisticated — but it’s more so to null out closer-in signals.
Steve Walko (K3PHL) has logged 46 of the lower 48 states on FM from his location in Quakertown, Pa. His multi-hop journey began from an apartment in Northeast Philadelphia, where he simply had a window-mounted dipole hooked up to a Sony XDR-F1HD receiver. In June 2008, he heard 92.9 KTZA(FM) Artesia, N.M., at a distance of more than 1,700 miles.
DXer Steve K3PHL near Allentown, PA needs just two more states to complete the lower 48 on FM, an impressive feat from his eastern location. On 7/14, he logged 94.3 KBYI Rexburg, ID for a new state at 1873 mi. pic.twitter.com/6cQShSacdC
— FM and TV DX (@DXTVFM) July 29, 2021
There are DX’ers closer to the middle of the country who have heard all 48 states on FM. Matt Sittel did so DX’ing from Omaha, Neb., and has 47 of 48 states logged from his current location in Manhattan, Kan.
Longtime DX’er Frank Merrill also logged all 48 states from his location in Macomb, Ill.
I’ve DX’d seriously since 2005, and while I can’t offer any guarantees of double-hop, here are three tips:
- Monitor 6-meter QSOs. Whether it’s PSK Reporter or DXmaps, while area hams making FT8 or voice contacts offer no guarantee of FM broadcast reception, it’s like a Tornado Watch. If you see a bunch of red lines over the Atlantic from the U.S. to Europe, you might want to beam your yagi northeast! Bryce and I have discussed this on the podcast — for the longest time, we’re not so sure people have been looking toward Europe for E-Skip. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take! Also pay attention to reports on FMList, and the WTFDA’s real-time WLogger is an excellent real-time resource, as well. And I’ll mention the real-time FM autologgers on RabbitEars.Info too.
- Find the lowest, quietest channel on your band possible and focus on that channel. Remember we talked about how the maximum usable frequency oftentimes never makes the FM broadcast band? If it does, it’s going to start in the low-end, first. Plus, take advantage of the fact that there are broadcast stations that operate between 87.5 and 88.0 in Europe! Several DX’ers in New England, including Mike Bugaj in Connecticut, heard RTP Antenna 3, Pico de Barossa, from the Azores in June 2023 on 87.7 FM.
- Finally, to reemphasize: Record. SDRs like the Airspy R2 give DX’ers the capability to record up to 10 MHz of the spectrum at a given time.
And remember, if your dial is untenable for skip, check out the TEF-powered webservers that are now part of the FMDX.org network, worldwide, including my own in New Jersey.
There are, of course, other ways FM signals can travel long distances, too. Tropospheric ducting is one – that’s how DX’er Sheldon Remington reported hearing California from Hawaii, for example. We’ve covered meteor scatter, too!
But double-hop offers mystique like no other propagation form on FM.
I’d love to hear of your E-Skip observations or questions – email me your stories!
[Read the Signal Spot from Nick Langan for More DX-Related Stories]
