Episode XI: Interview with William Hepburn

The VHF DX Podcast

On this November episode of the VHF DX podcast, Bryce and Nick briefly recap some rather interesting October tropo DX conditions in November. Then, they turn their attention to our very special guest, William (Bill) Hepburn.

If you've spent any amount of time DX'ing in the past two decades, you undoubtedly know Bill's name. Bill takes us through his career path in meteorology, including discussing the noted parallels in weather and radio propagation. In the 1980s, Bill spent time as a weather observer stationed in Nunavut, and we discuss E-Skip on FM he was able to catch while located at Coral Harbour, in the southern part of Nunavut. Four separate audio selections of FM receptions captured by in Coral Harbour are featured from the 1984 season.

Bryce and Nick also discuss with Bill his time as a DX'er from the Greater Toronto area, including at his current DX QTH in Grimsby.

Finally, Bill is surely best known and revered in the DX community for his daily Tropospheric Ducting Forecasts, available at his website, https://dxinfocentre.com/, which we highly encourage you to check out for his forecasts and other tremendously helpful DX aids. We discuss how Bill's forecasts have evolved from simply just being a daily text summary of conditions on the WTFDA email list, to the data Bill uses to generate the forecasts, and how to best interpret the forecasts. We also give DX'ers some tips to garner a general idea of when optimal tropo conditions might be possible in your area based on current weather conditions (hint: look for those dirty high pressure systems!).

If that wasn't enough, Bryce also is back with our Audio Spotlight segment! We have some fine coastal tropo DX audio from last month share with you from one of our favorite DX'ers, Chris Lucas of Poughkeepsie, NY. Esteemed DX'er Justin Wolffing shared with us audio of two translators he captured via Es this past season from Minneapolis. The west coast of the US is also represented, as we thank Eric in Aptos, CA for a few excellent clips, including his new FM DX distance record, and 162 MHz. NWR skip!

We hope you enjoy this action packed episode, and we'll see you next month.