I was driving last night, really bored around two in the morning. Finally turned on my radio (AM only :-( ) and there was a 24-Hour news and traffic station talking about Interstate 93 :hmmm: I was trying to guess where it was from and settled on Boston, Massachusetts and then I went through the dial and got a LI NY station and some NJ station. Pretty cool hearing about conditions a few hundred miles away.
When I still lived in Ohio, I traveled I-80 across PA several times per year.
There are not a lot of stations along that route and topography makes things harder.
But, I was able to get a number of "clear channel superstations"
660 WFAN New York, New York* (formerly WNBC)
670 WSCR Chicago, Illinois*
710 WOR New York, New York
760 WJR Detroit, Michigan
770 WABC New York, New York
860 CJBC Toronto, Ontario
880 WCBS New York, New York
1010 CFRB Toronto, Ontario
1020 KDKA Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1030 WBZ Boston, Massachusetts
1060 KYW Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1090 WBAL Baltimore, Maryland
1100 WTAM Cleveland, Ohio (formerly WWWE)
1210 WPHT Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (formerly WCAU)
1530 WCKY Cincinnati, Ohio
Used to be clear channel until 1998 - or was when I was doing this:
1190 WOWO Fort Wayne, Indiana
* One year I was heading home for Christmas on a Monday night and was listening to Monday Night Football. I had to keep adjusting my analog dial to keep a signal. It look me awhile for me to realize that I was switching between these two stations. (Of course, with modern digital tuners, it would be much easier to figure this out.)
From SE Michigan, a 700-mile radius seems to be the limit under ideal conditions. I know I've gotten WCCO-AM and WSB-AM before.
A lot of the stations in Detroit, both FM and AM, have pretty good reception in Cleveland, surprisingly.
When we first moved to McCall, Idaho, we weren't able to get the television station that had Seattle Mariners games. This was also before the days of MLB.tv/Gameday audio, so we had no easy way to watch or listen to the games. We were up in the mountains so were unable to get much radio reception of anything
My Dad bought 100 feet of wire and essentially turned a tree in the front yard into a giant antenna and we were then able to pick up KOMO 1000 from Seattle at night. Amusingly, we were still unable to pick up what we were shooting for, which was the nearest affiliate in Orofino, Idaho.
I used to enjoy trying to pick up clear channels on AM when driving around late at night. I remember during a snow event in Greenville, SC where I was literally not moving on Interstate 85 listening to KYW out of Philadelphia. Other times I remember listening to radio from Chicago when on Interstate 10 in Northwest Florida.
WLW, 700 AM in Cincinnati. Listened to many a late-night Reds game on the west coast in my youth and have fond memories of my dad falling asleep listening to the Reds.
WHAS, 840 AM in Louisville. The stories of thousands of UK fans who would get in their car and drive to a spot where they could pick up the basketball games being called by legendary announcer Cawood Ledford are very common in these parts.
WKBW--Buffalo, NY--I used to listen overnite from Dover, DE mainly for the lake effect snow forcasts! I couldnt imagine getting 2-4' or more of snow overnite!
When I was growing up, I used to like to stay up all night(at least on non-school nights) and go across the AM dial and see how many distant stations I could pick up. Being in the center of the country, I could get quite a large range of stations from coast-to-coast. The most distant station I could pick up on a regular basis was WSB 750 AM from Atlanta. I could pick up KFI 640 AM from Los Angeles sometimes. WHAM 1180 AM from Rochester, NY was the furthest east I could usually pick up stations, although several times I was able to get WCBS 880 AM from New York City. I especially used to like to listen to the Chicago stations-WBBM 780 AM was one of my favotites because I always found it interesting that they gave traffic updates even in the early-morning hours.
@killerttux---you only have AM radio in your car :poke: wth!! cmon man its 2010!! :poke:
I'd scan the am dial also late at night just to see what I could pickup. I was from Dover, DE and I believe the furtherest signal I got was from DFW.
In the 70's we lived in the sticks with cable tv not available so we had a 50' or so outside antennae with a motor so you could turn the antennae to pickup a signal, at night during good weather conditions I'd pickup Norfolk, VA tv stations, as well as NYC and sometimes Boston. We received Philly and Balto, DC stations regularly even tho we were 75-125 miles away.
While growing up in the North Country, I often listened to WCBS 880's coverage of Yankee games (since no station in the area carried them).
I remember the many times we'd take family trips to Michigan and drove well into the night...my dad would be switching between various AM radio stations from Chicago all the way to Boston...it was interesting to hear traffic reports, weather forecasts, and news from all over the country.
The only AM stations I'm aware of are Spanish Mariachi stations and political talk shows. There's some traffic condition channels, as noted by blue signs.
That said, I usually listen to classic/alternative rock, rock, hip hop or my CDs.
I once picked up KDKA 1020 all the way South in Columbia, SC.
And sometimes I could pull in the CBC Radio-1 740 out of Toronto (CBC is now on FM there) as far South as the North Hills of Pittsburgh when they were still on AM.
I think the farthest afield that I picked up was Nashville's own WSM 650 when I was in Fremont, OH.
Picking up AM signals is somewhat of a hobby of mine. Usually, the stations I can pick up on a regular basis:
WWL New Orleans
WSB Atlanta
WSM & WLAC Nashville
KMOX St. Louis
WBBM & WGN Chicago
WBAP Dallas
WOAI San Antonio
KOA Denver
WLW and WCKY Cincinnati
KOOJ Iowa (an AM hot AC)
At times, I can also get WJR Detroit and WTAM Cleveland.
Growing up in Ohio I had a similar set up to Corco. Maybe 50 ft. of insulated copper wire that stretched over the roof of my parents house.
I kept a list of the station I picked up. My furthest away station was 1220 WOAI in San Antonio and 850 KOA Denver.
I got lucky a couple of times and picked up low power (1,000 Watts or lower) stations from Orange Tx and Fargo, ND as well.
I enjoy listening to the CFL out of Hamilton on a clear, crisp signal here in NJ.
Night AM listening is especially SWEET when you have a fully-restored pre-WWII radio to listen to it on!
:nod:
And don't forget live sports - Major League Baseball and AM radio are still the match made in Heaven and NFL and other games sound pretty good on it, too. For example, with the NFL's Green Bay Packers, I'll turn the TV sound down and get the audio from Wayne Laravee and Larry McCarren, their radio guys. I can also receive Bears games by day (WBBM, 780 AM out of Chicago) and several more teams at night (I listened to last Thursday night's Vikings @ Saints game on WWL, 870 AM out of New Orleans - loud and clear!). For baseball, by day I can hear games of the Brewers (many stations in Wisconsin), Cubs (WGN, 720 AM) and White Sox (WSCR, 670 AM, both out of Chicago).
:cheers:
One pre-War radio that I am working on now, a 12-tube Zenith 1204-chassis set (made in 1938), has the VERY BEST AM tuner that I have ever seen - with an RF amplifier stage it is able to fully separate adjacent stations all up and down the band and pull in ones that I never thought that I could get here in NE Wisconsin - and with GREAT sound quality! I can see why the set that I have (a Zenith 12-S-245 'chairside' set) retailed for about $170 in 1938 money (about $3500-4000 in today's money) and people back then willingly paid it. It's that day's equivalent of the modern-day room-sized 'theater' big-screen home entertainment center.
:clap:
BTW, 740AM out of Toronto plays stuff such as music and 'OTR' ('Old Time Radio') shows overnight that is very fitting for these antique sets, too, and is very strong here.
One more, during the times of the year when it is dark by about 7pm central time here, the Grand Old Opry (the longest-running show in all of broadcasting worldwide, they haven't missed a show since the mid-1920s) is loud and clear on WSM, 650 AM out of Nashville, TN, every Saturday night.
Mike
I used to "DX" (scan for distant AM stations) twenty years ago. I had a GE SuperRadio III that was extra sensitive and enjoyed finding not just the clear channels, but also the regionals. But this was before 95% of the AM band had switched over to syndicated, satellite-fed programming. Now it's so rare to find a station out there putting out something original that it's just no fun to DX anymore.
Another thing is that most factory car radios today have lousy AM receivers, at least compared to 30-40 years ago. My late-teenagerhood '75 Ford Pinto with its AM-only radio could pick up distant stations really well. My recent cars, not so much.
jim
I lived on the Hawaiian island of Kauai in the early 1980s and I learned that at night, you could pick up AM radio stations on the mainland. I was probably the only person on Kauai that had KFI in Los Angeles pre-set on his car radio! (This was long before KFI and other AM stations that played music switched to right-wing talk radio.) I think the farthest I ever picked up on Kauai was WOAI in San Antonio.
Quote from: hm insulators on September 14, 2010, 05:31:33 PM
(This was long before KFI and other AM stations that played music switched to right-wing talk radio.)
I stopped listening to that a long time ago even though I agree with most of what they have to say. The shows just got me all upset about things I couldn't do anything about plus the hyperbole of what might happen.
And, in general, I've stopped listening to all talk radio (Sports, Lifestyle, etc.) once I realized that 99% of the callers to these shows are idiots.
I cannot listen to talk on the radio. Even station identification is enough to get me to change the channel. that's what I like about late-night satellite radio - no DJs, no station identification, just back to back songs.
I don't mind sports radio...sometimes it's the only thing that'll keep me awake and focused late into the night. There's also some NPR programs I enjoy as well (particularly on the weekend...I'm impartial to Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!. I don't care for most political talk shows...the hosts are all the same- either too liberal or too conservative, and unable to see anyone else's point of view.
During the day, though, I much prefer to drive to music, particularly of the rock variety, and played really loud. During the night, I need to be able to pay more attention to my surroundings, and loud rock music often keeps me from doing that (not to mention loud rock usually just makes me want to drive faster :D)
listening to rock and metal definitely keeps me awake at night!
I may run against the grain here, but I like having a live DJ playing songs on the radio when I drive at night. It makes my trip feel less isolated and alone. Problem is that so many stations "voicetrack" their evening and night DJs now -- basically, they prerecord the talking bits and let the computer play them back at the right time.
I worked in radio as a disk jockey for 9 years, so I may have a biased opinion about live, local radio.
jim
Quote from: mobilene on September 15, 2010, 09:45:45 AM
Problem is that so many stations "voicetrack" their evening and night DJs now -- basically, they prerecord the talking bits and let the computer play them back at the right time.
It's even worse when the voice tracks and the songs get out of sync (the prerecorded DJs are introducing songs that were played ten minutes ago!)
I like having a live,
local DJ when I listen to the radio as well- I enjoy listening to their commentary on all sorts of things. However, it is critical to maintain the right balance- if a DJ talks too much and there is too little music, that's a turnoff...however, if I want 100% music, I'll plug in an MP3 device (or, if I'm at home, open iTunes) and listen to that.
I was a college radio DJ, and have worked in both local radio and television, so maybe I'm also partially biased as well.
When I'm driving, I can't stand that. These days, a ton of smaller local stations use syndicated feeds that broadcast generic content to a ton of other small local stations. When I drove through Texas in February, I was scanning the band and got a station that was exactly the same feed as the one that broadcasts in McCall, Idaho- the only difference being a different station identifier.
That's annoying.
I enjoy some talk radio- the Bob Rivers show in Seattle is always a ton of fun to listen to on long morning Puget Sound-area drives. Louis and Floorwax in Denver aren't that great- I'd rather listen to music.
One of the things I really enjoy doing when I'm in the Great Plains/Midwest and I'm on a long drive on a Sunday morning is finding a station that's broadcasting a local church sermon- you can almost always find one. I'm not a religious person, but it's fun to listen to what is important in a given community.
On that note, that's the best part about listening to true local radio- no matter the format it is fun to listen to local commercials and local commentary. If I'm driving through a new area, I want to glean as much information as possible about what it's like to live there without inconveniencing myself so much as to get out of the car (except when necessary), and the local radio station is probably the best way to do it.
If I'm really in the middle of nowhere I'll turn on the iPod (see rural Wyoming), and satellite radio is good if I'm on the road and don't want to miss a sporting event, but 90% of the time I'm surfing the dial while I drive.
the disadvantage of the ipod is that it's music you already know. (well, unless it's someone else's ipod!) radio, ideally, lets you discover music that is new to you that you like.
but I just can't deal with the talking. 3 or 4 seconds of it and you've lost me.
I bought an iPod because I was getting rid of XM, and figured I'd just put all of my CDs on it and cycle through the same music for free instead of paying $12.95/month for SiriusXM to cycle through the same music.
As for clear channel stations, I can usually get:
WFAN, WABC, and WCBS New York City
KYW Philadelphia
WJR Detroit
WLW Cincinnati (once came in strongly enough for the HD carrier to lock)
WBBM Chicago
Quote from: corco on September 15, 2010, 01:47:31 PM
When I'm driving, I can't stand that. These days, a ton of smaller local stations use syndicated feeds that broadcast generic content to a ton of other small local stations. When I drove through Texas in February, I was scanning the band and got a station that was exactly the same feed as the one that broadcasts in McCall, Idaho- the only difference being a different station identifier.
That's annoying.
I enjoy some talk radio- the Bob Rivers show in Seattle is always a ton of fun to listen to on long morning Puget Sound-area drives. Louis and Floorwax in Denver aren't that great- I'd rather listen to music.
One of the things I really enjoy doing when I'm in the Great Plains/Midwest and I'm on a long drive on a Sunday morning is finding a station that's broadcasting a local church sermon- you can almost always find one. I'm not a religious person, but it's fun to listen to what is important in a given community.
On that note, that's the best part about listening to true local radio- no matter the format it is fun to listen to local commercials and local commentary. If I'm driving through a new area, I want to glean as much information as possible about what it's like to live there without inconveniencing myself so much as to get out of the car (except when necessary), and the local radio station is probably the best way to do it.
If I'm really in the middle of nowhere I'll turn on the iPod (see rural Wyoming), and satellite radio is good if I'm on the road and don't want to miss a sporting event, but 90% of the time I'm surfing the dial while I drive.
Yep, and if you listen to am and even some fm long enough in a day, you'll find they have the same song list also, that drives me nutz!! You can hear the same 12 songs in the same order from coast to coast, different stations of course.
There is a classic rock station out of Dubuque, Iowa that must be run by the same company as a station in Indiana somewhere. Every once in a while, they must forget to hit the right button at the main control system, and pretty soon, you're listening to the broadcast from the Indiana station, even though you know you've got the Dubuque station tuned in. THe funny thing is, the music format is exactly the same. The only time I could tell that something was up was when the commercials came on, and were advertising places in Indiana. It's like what the hell is going on? Makes me love being able to listen to a nearby college station. It may be amatuerish, but at least you know what you're getting and it isn't over-commercialized. I just love it when the college station has a screw up, and then they'll play a bit that says "This mistake was brought to you by the dumbass running the board."
I remember one time as I was driving into Canon City, CO - night was falling and I was hitting "seek" on the AM side... and I picked up WWL as they were broadcasting the big Monday Night Saints game - the first one back in the Dome after Katrina hit. I held onto that signal all the way to Lamar, when I stopped. It made the drive a lot more bearable, though.
The best part of AM radio? Coast to Coast! I spent many long night-time drives listening to Art Bell's craziness, and still listen to George Noory every once in a while. Keep in mind I don't believe any of the crazy crap they talk about, but it's definitely AM radio at its finest!
Quote from: realjd on September 19, 2010, 07:45:32 PM
The best part of AM radio? Coast to Coast! I spent many long night-time drives listening to Art Bell's craziness, and still listen to George Noory every once in a while. Keep in mind I don't believe any of the crazy crap they talk about, but it's definitely AM radio at its finest!
Yep, and they're on so many radio stations I think you can pick them up anywhere!!
Quote from: mobilene on September 15, 2010, 09:45:45 AM
I may run against the grain here, but I like having a live DJ playing songs on the radio when I drive at night. It makes my trip feel less isolated and alone. Problem is that so many stations "voicetrack" their evening and night DJs now -- basically, they prerecord the talking bits and let the computer play them back at the right time.
I worked in radio as a disk jockey for 9 years, so I may have a biased opinion about live, local radio.
jim
I prefer live DJs on a local station too when I'm travelling. I always look up online on a website that lists radio stations by market and write down all of the stations in the area I am traveling in that play the kind of music I like. I prefer that to satellite radio or recorded music for the same reason-it makes me feel less isolated and alone. I also like it because I feel like it gives me some connection to the area I am travelling through and it's nice to have in case of severe weather.
Two of my favorite hosts are on XM satellite radio, which is a plus for me. The third is mostly on AM, and unfortunately AM reception is crappy in some of the areas where I travel. Sometimes I can pick up his show via some of the audio apps for iPhone and iPod, but often I'm forced to download the podcast and play it later.
But I always visit the host's Web site and copy down the stations on which he appears in areas where I'll be traveling. That way I know what stations to try to tune in between noon and 3 pm Eastern time.
Quote from: PAHighways on September 15, 2010, 02:55:13 PM
WLW Cincinnati (once came in strongly enough for the HD carrier to lock)
I wish I had been around when WLW was tossing out 500,000 watts. It was said that it could be heard in Hawaii in the
daytime.
I love AM surfing, I rolled 300 feet of wire around a garden hose reel and parked it next to the house just for that radio. From Ohio I can usually grab WHO pretty easily, although once I nailed KOA in Denver. From South Carolina I could usually get WOAI in San Antonio. They had a couple ladies from the local WNBA team on the air and were trying to impress them by saying they were being heard in 36 states so I called in to chat.
Kinda off topic but years ago I sent a note to Radio China (shortwave) and about once a year they still send me an email saying hi.
I remember a family trip coming back from Utah, and coming down Emigrant Hill into Pendleton, picking up a San Francisco AM station. My dad mentioned on a previous trip picking up a Los Angeles station from the same area.
Those of you who do scanning, have you picked up Canadian or Mexican stations?
Quote from: huskeroadgeek on September 20, 2010, 09:23:15 PM
Quote from: mobilene on September 15, 2010, 09:45:45 AM
I may run against the grain here, but I like having a live DJ playing songs on the radio when I drive at night. It makes my trip feel less isolated and alone. Problem is that so many stations "voicetrack" their evening and night DJs now -- basically, they prerecord the talking bits and let the computer play them back at the right time.
I worked in radio as a disk jockey for 9 years, so I may have a biased opinion about live, local radio.
jim
I prefer live DJs on a local station too when I'm travelling. I always look up online on a website that lists radio stations by market and write down all of the stations in the area I am traveling in that play the kind of music I like. I prefer that to satellite radio or recorded music for the same reason-it makes me feel less isolated and alone. I also like it because I feel like it gives me some connection to the area I am travelling through and it's nice to have in case of severe weather.
What's the website you use? I've gotten into the habit of printing out Wikipedia's "lists of radio stations by state" when I'm planning to be in an area I don't know. It's sortable by format, which is nice. But this may be a work in progress - I know the New York list, as of three months ago, didn't have formats for most stations.
Quote from: Bickendan on September 23, 2010, 06:23:09 AM
I remember a family trip coming back from Utah, and coming down Emigrant Hill into Pendleton, picking up a San Francisco AM station. My dad mentioned on a previous trip picking up a Los Angeles station from the same area.
Those of you who do scanning, have you picked up Canadian or Mexican stations?
I majored in French and like to keep up. Besides listening to and watching French and Belgian stations on line, I sometimes listen, when I'm out at night, to CJBC 860 in Toronto (on Radio-Canada, the French-language counterpart to the CBC). One of the few AM stations that the CBC and Radio-Canada didn't unload a few years back. On a road trip to the Cleveland area last year and to the Erie area this year, I was able to get Radio-Canada on 860 or a variety of FM signals (that Wikipedia list for Ontario helps....) from across the lake much of the time.
In English, I've picked up CFRB 1010, an all-news station (I think) in Toronto. Can't get it close to New York City because of WINS. There's a station in Hamilton, Ont., on 910 if memory serves.
Radio, particularly AM DXing and amateur, is one of my consuming hobbies besides the roads. My father told me a story of being spooked out by listening to a station in Chicago playing the "is Paul McCartney dead" show, while driving down the old two-lane US 340 south on a Baltimore to Roanoke trip. You don't get that kind of weirdness except on Coast to Coast AM nowadays. Haven't listened to Coast regularly since Art Bell left, which was about the time it was briefly put on FM talk locally. Also about the same time I began to give up the very long, late road trips lasting into the wee hours.
These days, I 'settled' for listening to WBZ, interviewing survivors of the USS
Pueblo and their upcoming reunion that weekend. The ship and crew were captured by the North Koreans in 1968. Very informative about a little-mentioned historical event, all while traversing US 50 toward Ocean City on a foggy night in 2008.
Most times now, I have the ipod and CDs, even FM has become unlistenable. I can see soon, there won't be any radios in cars, any programming we want can be piped in from our ipods/cellphones, hooked in via USB or Bluetooth.
Near the Big Bend of MD's I-695 on the east side is a local 860 tower, so directional toward Baltimore City that at night, in Essex on MD 150, though you could
see the towers, you'd hear it fade out, replaced by the French of CJBC. Propagation favors one region at a time... the Northeast, the Midwest, or the South and Cuban/Caribbean clears, but can change in the course of a night.
@KillerTux Here's the top for DX so far. WBAL in Baltimore heard from Ireland. This guy has some other videos, including a local band scan. They still have music on AM over there; such a scan in the US would reveal mostly syndicated fare.
"WBAL in Baltimore heard from Ireland."
If Gugliemo Marconi were alive today, he would be mighty proud of that cross-Atlantic transmission. :clap:
Quote from: Michael in Philly on September 23, 2010, 10:00:46 AM
In English, I've picked up CFRB 1010, an all-news station (I think) in Toronto. Can't get it close to New York City because of WINS. There's a station in Hamilton, Ont., on 910 if memory serves.
You'd be surprised. I'm 30 miles out and I get so much interference in my parking lot that, for example, this morning I heard the other station clearer than WINS. Was it CFRB? I couldn't stand listening to two feeds long enough to catch a call signal.
Quote from: MDRoads on December 31, 2010, 06:39:24 PM
Near the Big Bend of MD's I-695 on the east side is a local 860 tower, so directional toward Baltimore City that at night, in Essex on MD 150, though you could see the towers, you'd hear it fade out, replaced by the French of CJBC. Propagation favors one region at a time... the Northeast, the Midwest, or the South and Cuban/Caribbean clears, but can change in the course of a night.
Here's a Baltimore-area weirdness for you: found a somewhat-alternative-rock station (what I most like to listen to lately) in York, Pa., on 105.7. At least it's licensed to York and identified as York-Harrisburg-Lancaster. Comes in well far north of Harrisburg in the mountains, but barely reaches south of York because of 105.7 in Baltimore. I don't know what are the rules about how far apart two radio stations on the same frequency have to be, but I'm surprised they'd assign the same FM frequency to Baltimore and York. With analog TV, it was generally 175 to 200 miles, with some exceptions on the East Coast.
Too much quoted
Quote from: AlpsROADS on January 01, 2011, 03:08:18 AM
Quote from: Michael in Philly on September 23, 2010, 10:00:46 AM
In English, I've picked up CFRB 1010, an all-news station (I think) in Toronto. Can't get it close to New York City because of WINS. There's a station in Hamilton, Ont., on 910 if memory serves.
You'd be surprised. I'm 30 miles out and I get so much interference in my parking lot that, for example, this morning I heard the other station clearer than WINS. Was it CFRB? I couldn't stand listening to two feeds long enough to catch a call signal.
I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote that post, because I'd certainly had, by then, the experience of picking up CFRB on, say, 202 in Branchburg at night when I wanted north Jersey traffic. But within 30 miles of New York (farther out during the day), I count on getting WINS. WCBS comes in pretty well down here (Center City Philadelphia) no matter what time of day; I once got WBZ Boston on a summer afternoon in Monmouth County, and once picked up WTAM in Cleveland (carrying a Bengals game, oddly) late afternoon but still before sunset in Scotch Plains.
Quote from: Michael in Philly on January 01, 2011, 03:09:07 AM
Here's a Baltimore-area weirdness for you: found a somewhat-alternative-rock station (what I most like to listen to lately) in York, Pa., on 105.7. At least it's licensed to York and identified as York-Harrisburg-Lancaster. Comes in well far north of Harrisburg in the mountains, but barely reaches south of York because of 105.7 in Baltimore. I don't know what are the rules about how far apart two radio stations on the same frequency have to be, but I'm surprised they'd assign the same FM frequency to Baltimore and York. With analog TV, it was generally 175 to 200 miles, with some exceptions on the East Coast.
Always seemed to me very close spacing for commercial stations (they both share 88.1, but York's is a lower power campus station). The 105.7 in Baltimore has its tower on Moravia Rd just north of I-895. Don't know about now, but when it was an oldies format, the city of license was Catonsville, across town. Would identify as "WQSR, Catonsville, Baltimore." York's 105.7 is probably on that ridge north of US 30. It's only ~70 highway miles between, less straight-line. There was a fuss in northern Baltimore County where they interfere, when WQSR's parent company had rights to the Ravens for a year or two. They moved the games to co-owned 102.7, not just because of co-channel interference from the north, but also a 105.9 adjacent channel down in the Washington area.
Quote from: Michael in Philly on January 01, 2011, 03:09:07 AMHere's a Baltimore-area weirdness for you: found a somewhat-alternative-rock station (what I most like to listen to lately) in York, Pa., on 105.7. At least it's licensed to York and identified as York-Harrisburg-Lancaster. Comes in well far north of Harrisburg in the mountains, but barely reaches south of York because of 105.7 in Baltimore. I don't know what are the rules about how far apart two radio stations on the same frequency have to be, but I'm surprised they'd assign the same FM frequency to Baltimore and York. With analog TV, it was generally 175 to 200 miles, with some exceptions on the East Coast.
According to the polar plot (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/polarplot?frame=Y&temp=13734&rotate=0.00&p0=1.000&p10=1.000&p20=1.000&p30=1.000&p40=1.000&p50=1.000&p60=1.000&p70=1.000&p80=1.000&p90=1.000&p100=1.000&p110=1.000&p120=0.980&p130=0.790&p140=0.630&p150=0.500&p160=0.395&p170=0.320&p180=0.380&p190=0.485&p200=0.615&p210=0.775&p220=0.975&p230=1.000&p240=1.000&p250=1.000&p260=1.000&p270=1.000&p280=1.000&p290=1.000&p300=1.000&p310=1.000&p320=1.000&p330=1.000&p340=1.000&p350=1.000&p360=1.000&) of the signal on the FCC's website, the signal is directional with it attenuated to the south.
Not to hijack the thread, but is anybody else having trouble clicking onto links? The last time or two I've been on this webpage, every time I click a link, the computer just completely freezes up and refuses to do anything! I have a hell of a time even shutting it off and rebooting. :banghead:
Back to the subject: In southern California, there are two stations at 96.7FM, one in San Bernardino, the other in Orange County, so they are quite close to each other geographically.
Aren't there two 103.1's in Orange and Los Angeles counties?
How close can two stations with the same frequency be?
Quote from: Zmapper on January 27, 2011, 06:08:30 PM
How close can two stations with the same frequency be?
Depends on their signal strength and direction.
I know there are several frequencies on the AM side that over 1,000 stations using them.
^^^
Right, and some AM stations go off the air, turn down there power and/or directionalize their signal at night to avoid interference with the "clear channel" 50,000 watt stations. At least, they used to.
Quote from: Adam Smith on January 27, 2011, 06:16:23 PM
I know there are several frequencies on the AM side that over 1,000 stations using them.
Must be thinking of the 'local' channels, which are supposed to use non-directional antennas running 1000 watts or less.
These are: 1230, 1240, 1340, 1400, 1450 and 1490.
Quote from: mightyace on January 27, 2011, 06:33:58 PM
Right, and some AM stations go off the air, turn down there power and/or directionalize their signal at night to avoid interference with the "clear channel" 50,000 watt stations. At least, they used to.
Lots of restricted stations out there which must avoid interference with the clears. Some have pre-sunrise authority to go on the air at 6 a.m. local time with reduced power in their daytime pattern, in the event local sunrise is later (with DST, that's the case except the longest days from May to July).
Even some 50kW stations use directional patterns at night, to protect the other clears. The FCC provides each station a list of switch-over times, averaged for each calendar month, rounded to the nearest 15 minutes. One station near me actually has the day and night transmitter sites on opposite sides of town.
The problem arises today when a metro area sprawls beyond the towers, and into the null behind it. The service areas were determined using 1930s-1950s population patterns, and no provision was made for suburbanization. It's the reason some places with extensive sprawl, DC for example, are poor markets for AM.
Quote from: mightyace on September 13, 2010, 11:05:03 AM
When I still lived in Ohio, I traveled I-80 across PA several times per year.
There are not a lot of stations along that route and topography makes things harder.
But, I was able to get a number of "clear channel superstations"
660 WFAN New York, New York* (formerly WNBC)
670 WSCR Chicago, Illinois*
710 WOR New York, New York
760 WJR Detroit, Michigan
770 WABC New York, New York
860 CJBC Toronto, Ontario
880 WCBS New York, New York
1010 CFRB Toronto, Ontario
1020 KDKA Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1030 WBZ Boston, Massachusetts
1060 KYW Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1090 WBAL Baltimore, Maryland
1100 WTAM Cleveland, Ohio (formerly WWWE)
1210 WPHT Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (formerly WCAU)
1530 WCKY Cincinnati, Ohio
Used to be clear channel until 1998 - or was when I was doing this:
1190 WOWO Fort Wayne, Indiana
* One year I was heading home for Christmas on a Monday night and was listening to Monday Night Football. I had to keep adjusting my analog dial to keep a signal. It look me awhile for me to realize that I was switching between these two stations. (Of course, with modern digital tuners, it would be much easier to figure this out.)
By any chance, do you remember picking up the following:
800 CKLW the Big 8 Windsor, Ontario
740 CBL (later CHWO and now CFZM) Toronto, Ontario
Quote from: Tom on September 06, 2011, 05:54:42 PM
740 CBL (later CHWO and now CFZM) Toronto, Ontario
I still remember sometimes getting 740 down in the North Hills of Pittsburgh when it was still run by the CBC. But it all depended on the night as sometimes it would make it, sometimes it wouldn't.
Quote from: golden eagle on September 14, 2010, 12:11:05 AM
Picking up AM signals is somewhat of a hobby of mine. Usually, the stations I can pick up on a regular basis:
WWL New Orleans
WSB Atlanta
WSM & WLAC Nashville
KMOX St. Louis
WBBM & WGN Chicago
WBAP Dallas
WOAI San Antonio
KOA Denver
WLW and WCKY Cincinnati
KOOJ Iowa (an AM hot AC)
At times, I can also get WJR Detroit and WTAM Cleveland.
If that's on 1630, it's actually KCJJ in Iowa City. I've picked it up too. It's a defacto clear-channel station because so few stations are on that frequency. I pick it up here in Kansas at night better than I can pick up WHB in Kansas City.
KCJJ is also currently the only over-the-air outlet for the Mike O'Meara Show, which is otherwise available only as a podcast.
Quote from: Michael in Philly on September 23, 2010, 09:55:09 AM
Quote from: huskeroadgeek on September 20, 2010, 09:23:15 PM
Quote from: mobilene on September 15, 2010, 09:45:45 AM
I may run against the grain here, but I like having a live DJ playing songs on the radio when I drive at night. It makes my trip feel less isolated and alone. Problem is that so many stations "voicetrack" their evening and night DJs now -- basically, they prerecord the talking bits and let the computer play them back at the right time.
I worked in radio as a disk jockey for 9 years, so I may have a biased opinion about live, local radio.
jim
I prefer live DJs on a local station too when I'm travelling. I always look up online on a website that lists radio stations by market and write down all of the stations in the area I am traveling in that play the kind of music I like. I prefer that to satellite radio or recorded music for the same reason-it makes me feel less isolated and alone. I also like it because I feel like it gives me some connection to the area I am travelling through and it's nice to have in case of severe weather.
What's the website you use? I've gotten into the habit of printing out Wikipedia's "lists of radio stations by state" when I'm planning to be in an area I don't know. It's sortable by format, which is nice. But this may be a work in progress - I know the New York list, as of three months ago, didn't have formats for most stations.
Nothing like answering a question a year after it was asked, but in case you still read this, I use radiostationworld.com.
Quote from: rickmastfan67 on September 06, 2011, 10:21:45 PM
Quote from: Tom on September 06, 2011, 05:54:42 PM
740 CBL (later CHWO and now CFZM) Toronto, Ontario
I still remember sometimes getting 740 down in the North Hills of Pittsburgh when it was still run by the CBC. But it all depended on the night as sometimes it would make it, sometimes it wouldn't.
The Rock Radio Scrapbook website has an aircheck of CHWO's first day broadcasting on the 740 AM frequency.
http://rockradioscrapbook.ca/cka-jan2.html :coffee:
Back at home, I can usually get at night:
620 WTMJ Milwaukee
670 WSCR Chicago
700 WLW Cincinnati
720 WGN Chicago
740 CFZM Toronto
760 WJR Detroit
770 WABC New York
780 WBBM Chicago
800 CKLW Windsor
810 WGY Schenectady
820 WBAP Fort Worth
830 WCCO Minneapolis
840 WHAS Louisville
850 KOA Denver
860 CJBC Toronto
870 WWL New Orleans
880 WCBS New York
890 WLS Chicago
910 WFDF Farmington Hills
950 WWJ Detroit
1000 WMVP Chicago
1020 KDKA Pittsburgh
1030 WBZ Boston
1040 WHO Des Moines
1060 KYW Philadelphia
1100 WTAM Cleveland
1120 KMOX St. Louis
1160 WYLL Chicago
1180 WHAM Rochester
1530 WCKY Cincinnati
1540 KXEL Waterloo
Montreal's Sports radio, CKAC 730, was recently replaced by a station that broadcasts traffic reports 24/7, funded by the MTQ. As much as I am a roadgeek... lame.
Quote from: Dr Frankenstein on September 17, 2011, 12:17:33 AM
Montreal's Sports radio, CKAC 730, was recently replaced by a station that broadcasts traffic reports 24/7, funded by the MTQ. As much as I am a roadgeek... lame.
Something like that would be useful in Los Angeles.
Quote from: hm insulators on September 27, 2011, 04:41:25 PM
Quote from: Dr Frankenstein on September 17, 2011, 12:17:33 AM
Montreal's Sports radio, CKAC 730, was recently replaced by a station that broadcasts traffic reports 24/7, funded by the MTQ. As much as I am a roadgeek... lame.
Something like that would be useful in Los Angeles.
Have an XM radio? They have a station that's dedicated to LA traffic.
During the day, I can receive AM stations as far as CFCO 630 in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, Canada, WVFN 730 in East Lansing, MI and WSPD 1370 in Toledo, OH.
At night, I am able to recieve the following stations:
WTVN 610 in Columbus, OH
CFTR 680 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
WLW 700 in Cincinnati, OH
Plus some station broadcasting from Louisville, Kentucky on the 840 dial
That Louisville, Kentucky station is WHAS 840 AM. I remember picking it up in northern Michigan in the mid-1980's when it had a 1950's-1960's oldies music format on Friday nights. :coffee: