Mysterious french radio voices heard in USA

I wasn't sure what category to put this into but I am hoping someone can explain this mystery to me. Normally the radio stations I listen to aren't full of static but the other day, I believe it was Tuesday the 6th of July, the station I was listening to sometime around 5 or 5:30 PM EST was full of static. Then the station music suddenly disappeared and I heard someone speaking French. It was as if I was in France listening to the radio there. This was using a regular factory installed car radio. I heard someone yapping away in French for a minute or two, then more static, then my regular station music and commercials came back. Can anyone explain this? I was in South Carolina listening to 93.3 FM that day. Was there unusual sunspot activity in the last few days that could make radio signals bounce across the ocean and be picked up by regular radio? I don't know but there must be an explanation.

It's quite common for this to happen.

It was probably french canadian radio from Canada that you were picking up. Its caused by atmospheric conditions.

Seems strange to me considering I'm in South Carolina and have never heard anyone speaking French on the radio before. There was alot of static which was unusual though. Canada is over 1000 miles away from me. I didn't know my reception could get that good.

93.3 The Planet? If so, I listen to that station all the time, it's my favorite. I haven't heard anything about this, but I can ask friends if they happened to hear it.

Its called "skip" the signals get above and bounce or skip on clouds if I'm not mistaken...

I think that 93.3 Mhz is too high a frequency to skip. It's the lower frequencies in the shortwave bands that do that (

many stations rebroadcast radio stations from abroad, even fm stations. it's possible you passed through an area where a signal from such a station was close to the frequency of the signal you were listening to. could be that the transmitter got its frequency mixed up for a half hour before it realized its mistake.

-koji K.

I live in Hawaii. Over 20 years ago my FM Stereo receiver, a Sansui 2000, brought in FM stations from the mainland States. I cannot explain it, but the entire dial was filled with stations from everywhere, and by the way in Stereo with nothing more than the bar antenna. The explanation the FCC gave was that "sometimes signals bounce around." Traditionally FM is more like a TV signal, and does not reach so far, since it usually does not bounce off the ionisphere.

Yes it was 93.3 the Planet. I was driving in Greenwood at that time too. I can usually only pick up local FM stations within 50 to 70 miles. I never thought I would pick up something 1000 miles away. Hearing someone speaking French definitely was weird to me. I believe Cuba is closer than Canada to me. Now that I think about it though, I don't usually hear so much static when the radio is tuned in as I did the other day. Anyone know if a French Canadian station is very close to the frequency of 93.3 FM?

Originally posted by Nerdling
It's quite common for this to happen.
It was probably french canadian radio from Canada that you were picking up. Its caused by atmospheric conditions.

You would be amazed. I was on Maui a few years back and picked up out local AM station in San Fran broadcasting a giants game. IT was scratch but understandable.

Originally posted by orionthehunter
French Canadian station is very close to the frequency of 93.3 FM?

in quebec theres a channel on 93.3..

i live in wisconsin and its not that uncommmon to hear french canada radio on Am but ive never heard it on FM here

It would be more likely to hear long distance FM stations in Hawaii. FM is generally line of sight and there arent many buildings or mountains in the way between california and hawaii. Not many radio stations in between to interfere either.

The AM band on the other hand can do a little bit of skipping plus is a very low frequency signal so it carries a lot farther.


[edit on 9-7-2004 by perseus]

Originally posted by perseus
FM is generally line of sight and there arent many buildings or mountains in the way between california and hawaii.

Not many radio stations in between to interfere either.

Just only big chunk of Earth.

AM modulated radio stations using 100kHz and around it are those who can be heard as fas as there's enough transmitting power because they can bounce between ground surface and ionosphere.

But geomagnetic storms can cause phenomenon when you can't even hear nearby stations but suddenly you can hear stations from thousands kms away.

There were a number of other consequences of this storm. Numerous LORAN navigation problems occurred, especially on March 6 and 13. This was exacerbated because land stations could not use HF radio to report the problems to users. The MARS HF service from was out world-wide while 144-148 MHz transceivers, normally used for short-range communications, were receiving powerful signals from remote locations. California Highway Patrol messages were overpowering local transmissions in Minnesota.
www.geocities.com...

www.qsl.net...

It is possible it had the right atmospheric conditions to bounce. 93.3MHz isn't impossible to bounce, though generaly it is considered too high, it is possible, just highly improbable. Usualy I think the generaly cut off is 50 or 60 MHz ish.
some signals can very easily get bounced 1000km, some lower signals with the right conditions can even go 10,000 or 20,000km, or am i wrong on all this?
Maybe you could find out if anyone else experianced it?

Someone very close to me once told me about a phenomenon where pilots, not too long ago, were picking up ghostly transmissions from way back in WWII. Turns out that those transmissions had been bouncing around in the ionisphere for decades before they finally bounced out and someone heard them. Interesting story if nothing else.

Originally posted by postings
Turns out that those transmissions had been bouncing around in the ionisphere for decades before they finally bounced out and someone heard them. Interesting story if nothing else.

Those must have made "couple" circles around earth.

In WWII the Norwegians picked up strange german transmissions, and then according to records there were no transmissions at the time. Google it.
Also, I'm in London (UK) and on AM can pick up French french, sometimes even flemish stations.

orionthehunter,
It would be very unusual for this to occur but, it is possible. I'm curious about the weather conditions when it happened. Skip is usually only good for lower frequencies. At higher frequencies, and particularly on FM, long distance openings usually only heppen as a result of tropospheric ducting. In ham radio, this allows us to do some pretty amazing things but again, the openings are rare and last only a short time. What is more surprising is that the French signal overroad a local radio staton. That's almost impossible. The only thing I can think of is that you were in a bad reception location with some type on land or building feature blocking a direct path to the local station. All in all, a pretty unusual event for the FM broadcast band.
CS

It was very unusual. I don't recall ever hearing a FM station totally go silent and start hearing foreign language voices. In response to weather conditions, it has been stormy alot here recently but that day was sunny and hot with no storms directly at my location at that time. It's not the first time the station 93.3 has gone silent at my location though. In fact today I heard more static on the radio and the station went silent for at least a few minutes and then came back on in spurts. I'm familiar with AM stations getting signals from far away but not FM. I wonder if a storm somewhere in the area could redirect FM signals while blocking a local signal. Although I don't recall any storms in the area when I heard a guy talking French on the radio. The French voices only lasted for a couple of minutes and then the regular station reappeared after some static. The broadcast station may be about 50 miles from where I was at. This is assuming that the broadcast station is in Greenville, SC.