rain improves reception?

[inline300]

Fox is my trouble channel, but I've put a reflector on a diy four bay bowtie, and now I can get reception, but typically, only from 10am-6pm, give or take a hour or two.
What seems interesting, is on clear sky days or nights, reception is worse, yet on rainy days, fox comes in great, day, night, solid as a rock. Why would rain help reception?


http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3dcd3fccbd9d8b19


Kinda makes me wonder if it's an indication that the galvanized metal I'm using for the bowties is in some way performing better with rain, indicates I should switch to copper, maybe I'm reaching?

[GroundUrMast]

When we click on the path profile link (http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3dcd3fccbd9d8b19%26t%3dALLTV%26n%3d4) for WDKY in your TVFR, it's obvious that you have a significant bit of terrain roughly 1 mile from your location which is blocking your line of sight toward the WDKY transmitter. That amount of nearby obstruction is often enough to make reliable reception very elusive or impossible.

Changes in weather and the associated atmospheric conditions are known to change RF propagation... But predicting the exact effects with any precision is way beyond my math skills (and I suspect beyond the rest of the members of this forum).

I doubt, that wet antenna elements versus dry elements can be shown to have any significant variation in performance. I also doubt that using copper versus galvanized steel can be shown to be significant.

If you want to keep experimenting, I'd suggest you consider a build based on the VK5DJ software. http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=1106 Consider a 10 director cut for 575 MHz, the center frequency of real CH-31. Try tilting it up to aim at the top of the obstructing ridge.

[ADTech]

As noted in your previous thread, you need more antenna plus a preamp. http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?p=49560#post49560

As far as the rain vs dry goes, the water or lack thereof changes both the reflective and the absorptive nature of the terrain and foliage over which the signals must diffract or reflect. When you're barely hanging onto the reception by the edge of your fingernails, figuratively, it takes very little disruption of the propagation path to push your reception over the edge of the digital cliff.

[inline300]

Thanks groundurmast and ADtech
I try to point my antenna west, and the ridge I think your referring to, is on the right of that ridge. Or I should say. Antenna points down the valley, when facing west.

I'll try the yagi groundurmast, if your open to my asking questions that appear silly, as I'm a novice.