Northeast USA, the Purple Haze

[secret squirrel]

Just curious has anyone noticed any change in conditions in northeast US with the inclusion of the smoke from the ongoing forest fires from southern Canada? No scientific basis for the question, the Ohio Valley area here looks like it did when steel mills were operating.

 

[groundwire]

That kind of stuff possibly could affect radio propagation with very short wavelengths like vhf/uhf and higher. The smoke particles could possibly create the Same effects as temperature inversion / ducting type of propagation. At HF it has no effect.

 

[Handy Andy]

When I see conditions like this smoke we are having, also brings to mind the "inversions" caused by High pressure systems - lollygagging alongside cutoff lows that would mix the air below them into a soup that got stuck until some stronger systems came along to displace that stale air.

It would affect some VHF propagation - long distance DX contacts - I made it one time to Chicago on my simple mobile setup on 2M from of all places Gowen.

Used to hear other First Responder traffic from down there too - that is what would clue me in to even try DXing towards South Bend, South Haven, even Chicago and Gary down by the "bend".

As far as Canada is concerned, this may be a new thing for them, for us, we call it a fail in the Land Management department. The Pandemic and the PM's leader's approach to handling it, failed to maintain some managerial control over the resources they could have used to rebuild and also restore some of their economy by providing for and in Wood product harvesting.

Now they are stuck with all that wood they could have harvested is now fuel for those fires and it's not going to end anytime soon. That is a provincial problem for our neighbor to the North.