Why does my radio reception in my car get significantly worse while I’m sitting at a traffic light? As soon as I get through the intersection or otherwise past the light, the signal is back to normal.
I have a stock radio and antenna, and this happens to most people I’ve talked to in this area. I’m kind of near the edge of most of the Atlanta stations’ broadcasting range, so I’m sure that has something to do with it. I’m just wondering why the reception at the traffic light is so much worse than the normal (not great but acceptable) reception level. Any ideas?
Two possibilities that I can think of off the top of my head.
Intersections are often more built-up than than the roads leading to them. The buildings can cause the radio waves to bounce off the various structures and the signal arrives at your car mutilple times with a slight time difference causing multipath distortion.
The other possibility is that when you are driving down a road any signal disturbances you encounter are brief because you soon are past the area of bad reception. When stopped at a traffic light, if you happen to be stopped in an area with a bad signal, you just notice it more since the bad reception lasts the entire time until the light changes and you move on.