How far do your local radio stations go?

[Flint1979]

Sort of related, but it always seem like my local radio stations have a bigger range than out of town ones.

The only Boston station I can pickup here is WBZ. I know that transmitter is in Hull and designed to shoot most of the signal in the westward direction since going east would be over open water and pointless. Detroit is exactly due west of Boston so I get most of that signal at night.

[Roadgeekteen]

Sort of related, but it always seem like my local radio stations have a bigger range than out of town ones.

The only Boston station I can pickup here is WBZ. I know that transmitter is in Hull and designed to shoot most of the signal in the westward direction since going east would be over open water and pointless. Detroit is exactly due west of Boston so I get most of that signal at night.

Oh I was talking about fm. Am radio has a huge range.

[Flint1979]

Sort of related, but it always seem like my local radio stations have a bigger range than out of town ones.

The only Boston station I can pickup here is WBZ. I know that transmitter is in Hull and designed to shoot most of the signal in the westward direction since going east would be over open water and pointless. Detroit is exactly due west of Boston so I get most of that signal at night.

Oh I was talking about fm. Am radio has a huge range.

There are some strong FM stations around here. 95.5 in Detroit is pretty strong, 98.5 in Houghton Lake is strong. One night a few weeks ago at about 2am I decided to try FM and see how far I could pick up stations. I was pulling 97.1, 94.7 and 101.1 out of Detroit in pretty strong. I'm about 100 miles northwest of Detroit.

[Max Rockatansky]

I was surprised I kept hearing ESPN 710 out of Los Angeles all the way from Newhall Pass to Fresno two days ago.  That's about a good 200 miles north of Los Angeles which also happens to have a large number of coastal mountains in the way.

[Gulol]

Interesting one for me is that you can get KNX 1070 out of Los Angeles, albeit with a lot of interference, at night in the Denver Metro area.  If you're focused, you can pick up most of what's being said. 

[Flint1979]

Interesting one for me is that you can get KNX 1070 out of Los Angeles, albeit with a lot of interference, at night in the Denver Metro area.  If you're focused, you can pick up most of what's being said.

That's a pretty hefty distance. I can pick up WSB in Atlanta up here in Michigan. I have got bits and pieces of KOA and WBAP. About 2am I had it on 850 and was trying to figure out where this station was at then I was shocked when I heard them mention KOA Denver at the top of the hour. That's about 1,000 miles from me.

[The Nature Boy]

The two radio stations on Mount Washington can go as far west as Burlington, Vermont and as far south as Massachusetts. One of them claims to be heard into New York State but I don't know if this is true or not.

[Ben114]

Out in Worcester you can easily hear WBZ 1030 and most of the Cape doesn't get Boston stations, but I will say that the Cape stations are fairly good.

[Roadgeekteen]

The two radio stations on Mount Washington can go as far west as Burlington, Vermont and as far south as Massachusetts. One of them claims to be heard into New York State but I don't know if this is true or not.

They seem to fuzz out right at the MA border though.

[Flint1979]

Out in Worcester you can easily hear WBZ 1030 and most of the Cape doesn't get Boston stations, but I will say that the Cape stations are fairly good.

WBZ's transmitter is in Hull and it is directional due to the open waters of the ocean being to the east which would be a waste of signal so it's directional towards the west. I can pick it up in Michigan at night with no problem.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

WBZ's transmitter is in Hull and it is directional due to the open waters of the ocean being to the east which would be a waste of signal so it's directional towards the west. I can pick it up in Michigan at night with no problem.

Boo! It could have been received in Europe due to its frequency (1030) being far apart from the valid ones: 1026 and 1035 (In Europe the AM band goes from 531 to 1610 in 9 khZ increments, as opposed to the 10 khZ used in the USA). However I don't know its output, so it may have not been possible. Most reports of transatlantic radio are for VOCM from St. John's, NL, Canada. Being a clear channel station on 590 (far from the European 586 and 595) and at the closest point of the Americas from Europe helps.

[Flint1979]

I finally got it to come in. Last night I was scrolling around the band and I had it on 850AM and was wondering what the heck channel is this because I heard two channels coming in together so I moved my car around a little bit and one of the channels started coming in better. It was near the top of the hour so I decided to wait for the top of the hour jingle to figure out which station it was. It was KOA in Denver and it was coming in with another station but KOA overpowered the other station after I started moving around. It was pretty cool to hear a station from that far away.

[bing101]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O5X3YIcmVE

KGO-AM San Francisco a 50kw station that could be heard on the Western portion of the USA at night.

[Gulol]

Interesting one for me is that you can get KNX 1070 out of Los Angeles, albeit with a lot of interference, at night in the Denver Metro area.  If you're focused, you can pick up most of what's being said.

That's a pretty hefty distance. I can pick up WSB in Atlanta up here in Michigan. I have got bits and pieces of KOA and WBAP. About 2am I had it on 850 and was trying to figure out where this station was at then I was shocked when I heard them mention KOA Denver at the top of the hour. That's about 1,000 miles from me.

Dang ... that is pretty far!  Must be something with that frequency or maybe the antenna for the station, which is perched in the town not too far from where I live (Parker, CO), was built on an old Indian burial ground or on some cosmic portal.  The first house I had near where the antenna is had the radio station come through loud and clear on our land line telephone almost to a point where the radio station was drowning out the person on the other end of the phone.  Took buying a special filter at a HAM radio store to plug in to the jack and eliminate that ... never did try and see if I could get the station through my toaster though! 

[Flint1979]

Interesting one for me is that you can get KNX 1070 out of Los Angeles, albeit with a lot of interference, at night in the Denver Metro area.  If you're focused, you can pick up most of what's being said.

That's a pretty hefty distance. I can pick up WSB in Atlanta up here in Michigan. I have got bits and pieces of KOA and WBAP. About 2am I had it on 850 and was trying to figure out where this station was at then I was shocked when I heard them mention KOA Denver at the top of the hour. That's about 1,000 miles from me.

Dang ... that is pretty far!  Must be something with that frequency or maybe the antenna for the station, which is perched in the town not too far from where I live (Parker, CO), was built on an old Indian burial ground or on some cosmic portal.  The first house I had near where the antenna is had the radio station come through loud and clear on our land line telephone almost to a point where the radio station was drowning out the person on the other end of the phone.  Took buying a special filter at a HAM radio store to plug in to the jack and eliminate that ... never did try and see if I could get the station through my toaster though! 

I have KOA's antenna tower estimated to be around 6,000 feet above sea level. I also estimated that their reach covers just about the entire western half of the United States as well as parts of Canada and Mexico at night, during the day it's reach probably covers most of eastern Colorado all the way down into New Mexico and all the way up into Wyoming.

Yeah those filters work pretty good. I use to be a lot more heavily not quite as much anymore but use to be heavily into the CB radio and I even created override into my neighborhood coming through TV's and landline phones and stuff. I had a neighbor that complained so much that I actually went and bought them a filter to shut them up. I also went with another antenna after awhile that wasn't nearly as bad.

I guess KOA really is the blowtorch of the west. It's the only western U.S. station I've ever received here in Michigan. I've never even tried anything further west since I know it's probably not going to work. Are you able to get any of LA's stations or anything out there in Denver?

[Gulol]

During the winter and at night, I can get KNX 1070 out of Los Angeles.  If you can mentally filter out the static and interference from other stations, you can pick out what's being said. 

[planxtymcgillicuddy]

Bumping the thread.....

For me, I've picked up WKSK in Winston-Salem and Hickory several times (AM, that is!)

[ozarkman417]

Most of Springfield's local stations are actually located in Fordland, 20 miles east of here. This is because Fordland is 300 feet higher. I've never tried the AM stations but most FM stations go at least 100 miles, and therefore interfere with KC's stations.

[Flint1979]

First time I've ever noticed getting this station tonight but WWL in New Orleans is getting picked up in Michigan.

[TravelingBethelite]

My newest DXing record came from a cruise I just went on over winter break. I picked up WCBS 880 and WBZ 1020 on our stateroom balcony somewhere between San Juan and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Close to 2,000 miles for both.

As for FM, the strongest Columbia/Jefferson City/mid-Missouri stations (95.7 KWWR (a favorite of mine), 96.7 KCMQ, 97.7 KPOW) can be heard from Hannibal and Macon in the north down to Osage Beach and Ft. Leonard Wood south. Depending on the location of the transmitter, a couple reach Kansas City or St. Louis (but usually not both). From time to time I can pick up their stations here though.

[MikeTheActuary]

Low band conditions have been great.  Within the realm of ham radio, I worked Mongolia on 1805kHz yesterday at sunset. 

[sparker]

I've found the trick to picking up weaker local FM stations -- even college ones with about 30 watts maximum available -- is to use an analog tuner -- one that uses a variable leaf capacitor as the tuning element.  That will allow you to "detune" a bit if the frequency's a bit off -- more modern digital tuners, including all those included in home-theater shit, will generally only receive a signal that can be duplicated from their internal frequency menu; if it's off, they don't recognize it (with the exception of some nice but pricey Yamaha dedicated tuners).  Some of the better analog tuners have digital readouts -- but incorporate a bit of "play" in the tuning mechanism, reading the proximate frequency even if the tuner's actually in between the standard marks (i.e. -- if you're looking for 99.1 FM, you can still "detune" down to 99.05 and up to 99.15 if that's what it takes to actually receive a workable signal.).  But the best tuner performance is achieved with a decent antenna -- an outdoor omnidirectional works well; that's what I use to pick up the local (San Jose to San Mateo) college stations in my main downstairs system.  Upstairs, I have a passive indoor antenna called a Beam Box (dating from the early '80's) that's almost as good as the outside except with the really weak stations.  Well-programmed radio's a nice thing to have available -- but sometime you gotta tweak a little to get it right.    I'm in south-central San Jose, and can pick up College of San Mateo with my main rig -- and even Stanford with the bedroom tuner -- and college stations are as weak as they come (by charter!). 

The farthest station I've managed to get down here was SF State, which broadcasts from the hills above Daly City -- and that was with a 1966-vintage Marantz 10B vacuum-tube tuner my business acquired a couple of years back -- that thing could pick up anything with our attic "whip" antenna at the office.  But we acquired it to resell, so it ended up with a customer who drove down from Oregon to pick it up.    Damn thing was amazing! 

[bandit957]

Tuning on radios these days is terrible compared to what it used to be.

[Rushmeister]

Last night during my evening commute, I listened to WABC 770 AM for about half an hour.  Came in pretty well most of that time.  I was on the west side of Indianapolis, a cool 660 miles (give or take) from the transmitter.  I'm sure WABC's signal goes a lot farther west when conditions are favorable.  Oddly enough, WABC was coming in much better than Chicago stations WGN, WBBM, and WLS.

[Flint1979]

Last night during my evening commute, I listened to WABC 770 AM for about half an hour.  Came in pretty well most of that time.  I was on the west side of Indianapolis, a cool 660 miles (give or take) from the transmitter.  I'm sure WABC's signal goes a lot farther west when conditions are favorable.  Oddly enough, WABC was coming in much better than Chicago stations WGN, WBBM, and WLS.

I get that with WJR sometimes and I'm only 97 miles from the transmitter. For some reason WLW blows in here really strong all day long and the Chicago stations are all pretty good all day.

I've been having pretty good luck. Not too long ago I was able to get KOA in Denver for the first time ever. I've got WBAP in Dallas too.