"Peter R." wrote in
:

This evening I flew from Buffalo, NY, down to Cleveland, over to
Binghamton, NY, and back home to Syracuse for an Angel Flight. Total
time in the air was probably 3 hours just before sunset.

At first I thought something was wrong with my Garmin GNS430 radio
because I kept hearing numerous pilot-side communications, but no ATC.
This happened on the Buffalo departure frequency, the Erie, PA,
approach, and the Cleveland approach frequencies.

Just after departing Cleveland, I heard this again, but this time I
caught a check-in. The pilot mentioned Chicago Center and it finally
became clear to me that I was hearing pilots from 600 to 1,000 miles
away.

Is this phenomenon called skipping? What causes such a large outbreak
of this, high clouds or something else? A very interesting evening, as
it was occurring on just about all of the center and approach
frequencies that I was monitoring.


Skip is generally found with solar flares and increased solar activity. It
is a common source of excitement for Amatuer Radio operators. Some Hams
collect and trade postcards ("QSL Cards") from people with whom they spoke
to across long distances ("CQ DX")... It's been a long time since I did
any radio play, but I remember talking to someone from Florida from my
house in NY on a CB Sideband. One of my local Ham friends (the guy who was
trying to get me to get my Ham Operator's license, actually) had QSL cards
from Europe, most from Germany, IIRC...

To my recollection, you could catch some skip almost all the time, but
2-way skip was pretty rare except during solar activity. But it definitely
happens...