Wow FM DXing and strange day!

[Kage]

8AM this morning the FM dial is crazy beyond anything I can recall ever in my days of DXing, or in my whole life!

It started off with me firing up my own pirate station on 96.9 FM and going for a drive to the store while listening to a friends taped program he wanted me to broadcast.
I noticed my station was fighting another signal on the dial which is not normal as the channel I use is free of any stations for 50+ miles and the only clear one on the dial.

Normally with my 5 or 10 watts of power I can cover 5 miles with mostly solid signal in a place where there are tons of large trees and hills. Today my signal couldn't even get out a mile w/o another station fighting for the channel!

Thinking I got screwed out of my open channel because some station got a power increase I went home and switched off my transmitter figuring no one could really hear it that well with this other "new" station on my channel I have used for 5+ years.

Well I was in for a treat! I was picking up a station that is 80 miles away and it was coming in like it was next door on the channel I normally broadcast on.

Started to scan the dial and found there was a station on every single spot of the dial, and most spots had stations fighting each other to come through. Many channels would fade one FM station only to hear another one take over.
Even with no antenna connected to my radio and the whip antenna collapsed I still pick up a station on every channel with a bit of static.

Well I am A: glad that my channel is still free and that it was just some weird tropo or something, B: am having a hell of a fun time DXing stations that are 100+ miles away from me that are coming in like they are locals since this is a rare opportunity.

What's up with the sun today? I don't understand much about VHF skip so if anyone can fill me in on why this is happening?
All I know is it's crazy DXing time!
Some of our local stations are not coming in as good as normal, yet I am picking up stations that never come in even with the best of an antenna.

[Kage]

Lol sorry for the excitement but that was really fun logging stations on FM broadcast band for a change. It's going on 11am here now and the DX is ending. Now it's mostly locals again.
Anyone have some good links on FM DXing?

[tubehead]

i caught some of too. the skip was wiping a buddies station that was running 25w into a dipole less than a 1/4 mile away.

[clactonradio]

I had this the other month and was getting Germany and Walls

[HighMountainRadio]

E Season is a blast and F2 'skip' during winter is an even bigger blast !! I have lived through some wild times on VHF, never underestimate 'mother nature' to take you on one hell of a roller coaster ride !! Keep listening !!! It happens at a moments notice when you think the 'band is flat' ! I remember on a 'dead' 50 MHZ band several years ago, I had my 5 element yagi pointed at Europe and heard what I thought was ZP3B calling and thought immediately, Paraguay, an amazing catch ! I swung the antenna south and almost completely lost the signal, so I swung back towards Europe and realized then it was ZB3B, The Rock Of Gibraltar calling !! That was a chance in a lifetime, 20 db over S9 in the clear, nobody else on the band to be found, have it confirmed !!

73... Spooky...