Reception of the frequencies covered by a scanner is mainly "line of sight." That means you usualy can't hear stations that are beyond the horizon. Durring the summer months, you might be able to hear stations that are beyond the horizon in the 30-50 MHz (VHF low band) range located several hundred or evan thousands of miles away. This is because of summer atmospheric conditions. This type of reception is unpredictable but often very interesting!
Durring periods of intense skip listiners in the eastern part of the United States may hear signals from Europe and Africa durring the morning hours, and then from the western part of our own country later in the day. The broadcasts from Europe will mostly be from military instalations - including our own forces stationed there - because the 30-50 MHz band is not used for civilian two way radio in that area. Listiners in the western part of the United States will have to be content with catching signals from the midwest, east coast and Central and South America.
