Today is the big day for millions of people in 15 states within the U.S. as well as other locations as the moon completely blocks the sun for several minutes. Science is going all out to gather data during the event. There will be effects across the radio spectrum and the ionosphere will have its own shape-changing show causing varying and unusual reception on many bands. And many questions remain to be explained.
I wonder how this eclipse is different than ordinary night time when the earth turns away from the sun putting us on the dark side.
It's happening. It is becoming progressively darker out the window, where KDX Worldround Radio is situated just slightly off the Path of Totality. A brief drive to the south would get us in Totality Zone.
@carl-blare In Toronto where I am is just outside totality and cloudy of course but it didn't get dark like night it was just like dusk for 10 minutes.
Not at all like night even in totality as the sun is still out and the sky is still light. Just a shadow.
Same here, Mark. Reached a point of twilight for a few minutes. Maybe a few birds got riled as they flew around as if confused about what they should do next. Now it's just an ordinary day here on planet earth with a blue-grey sky blocking out the view of the cosmos and its limitless expanse.
It was like almost dusk for about 5 mins here where I am.
Yesterday, during my minute of excitement about the Near-Totality taking place so brightly/dimly, I wondered if radio buddy Broooce was tuning around his many radios at his Wireless Monitoring and Observation Station complete with numerous back-yard antennas, and he replied back:
Hi Uncle Carl!
I "saw" the eclipse with a pinhole box arrangement that I made. That was really fun!
Yes - I did monitor the AM broadcast band. I generally start at 1700 and work downward. I started doing that fairly recently. I go channel by channel. If there is something interesting or unusual I stop there. If nothing pans out - I keep working downward. There is a 1700 about 120 miles from me in NY state. It is not audible during daylight hours. But at the eclipse "peak" it was very loud - about 20 or 30 dB over S9. 1570 had 3 stations. I recorded that - have not listened to it yet. The eclipse peak for this part of Mass. was 93 percent. So we didn't have totality here - but it was still really great. Anyway - that happened at 3:25 PM EDT local. I also checked some frequencies that were on much lower channels like 1070 - for instance. I expected something there but there wasn't anything going on.
It was fun.
I have to check some typical daytime receptions again because I changed some things and I have to redetermine some typical signal strengths for those higher channels.
I will have to tell you how I changed my receiving set-up and made it "better." (It was an accident by the way.) I didn't expect things to be as good as they were.
More later on many of these same CBS stations.
Very Best Wishes
Brooooce