Skip and Fog

[MistaEko]

Well, I've been blessed with being out the past few morning and listening to a bit of skip rolling around on the bowl. But today the marine layer's a bit thicker and even at 11.30am, it's gray out. Now...I can hear just the tiniest bit of skip on six and I'm wondering (oh those of you who have knowledge of the atmospheric properties!) can fog or cloud cover have an affect on the amount/clarity of skip one receives?

[djrebel236]

from my experience, the more fog the the less skip, in ather words, the fog kills your signal to get out, thatz from my experiance, ounce the fog lifts, then ya can talk some skip...Dj

[MistaEko]

That's pretty much what I observed today. I got back out around 12.30pm and the sky was clearing...sure enough more signal was coming in.

And, boy, some fella named BearPaw in Northern Idaho had his beam pointed in the right direction today...hit me with nearly six pounds...sounded like he was way more local!!

[Circuit Breaker]

Fog really should have no impact on your signal because the wavelength of 11 meters is much larger than the size of the water droplets. However, at microwave frequencies, clouds can kill a signal. Having worked with RF for the past 10 years, I get a laugh from the satellite TV people when they come to my door trying to tell me they're more reliable and have a better signal than cable. I say, "Well, that may be true when it's clear. But what about during the big summer thunderstorms we get here in Florida?" They try to tell me that it doesn't happen, obviously not knowing that I have a background in it and I've seen it happen. My wife and I were at a restaurant having dinner and we sat in the bar while waiting for a table. The TVs were on satellite and a big thunderstorm passed over and the picture was gone. Also, I used to have a radio for the 1.23 cm amateur band, or 1.2 GHz. On a clear day I could hit a repeater 35 miles away and get an S-6 on my meter. When the fog would roll in, the signal would drop to a 3.

Anyway, fog should have little to no impact on your signal at these frequencies.