We know that AM radio can be heard from further away during the night. Coming back from Colorado, I was picking up a San Antonio station almost into Flagstaff almost 950 miles away. I also had a Tulsa, Omaha, and Los Angeles station on the trip but I think the SA one was the futhest away.
What’s the furthest away you’ve ever picked up a radio station on your car stereo?
When I lived in my hometown in southeast New Mexico, I could pick up 1110 KFAB out of Omaha, which was pretty far away. In fact, the radio station that I used to work for also had a station on the 1110 frequency, and one of my duties was making sure our station lowered its power at the correct time each night, since KFAB was a clear channel (note: not the company, hence the lowercase) station, meaning it had broadcast priority.
The furthest I could identify was Chicago, and I live in Pennsylvania. Back when I was a kid I recall getting El Paso on my crystal radio. Car receivers suck.
I can do better on the equipment I use on my aircraft. I’ve gotten global reception with that, albeit at 25,000 feet.
When I lived in West Palm you could get the Chicago clear channels like WLS and WBBM fairly regularly.
In Chicago the furthest west has been KSL - Salt Lake, I don’t recall the sign but on a good night there used to be (maybe it still is there) a Newfoundland station I could get though the NYC clear channels were the farthers east that could reliably be brought in.
Going south while in Chicago WLW -Cincinnati, WSM - Nashville and WSB - Atlanta are easy catches
clear channels like WLS reached most of Arkansas. They were the only decent Rock N Roll station we could listen to 30 years ago. Damn shame when they sold out and went to a talk radio format. :rolleyes: That was around 1988 or 1990? I don’t recall for sure.
AM is pretty much dead these days. Nothing in the Little Rock area except talk radio and religous stations.
Saturday nights I still listen to the Grand Ole Opry on WSM AM 650 clear channel in Nashville.
Here’s some interesting information about WSM AM 650 clear channel.
I listened to clear channel AM stations a lot in the car when I traveled. You could always find great music. Not any more. 
history of WLS AM Chicago.
That’s the day the music died on that station.
Was WLS a big part of your teenage years?
Back in the 60’s and early 70’s local, rural radio only played country music. WLS and other clear channel stations were the only source for Rock N Roll. Without these stations, the music wouldn’t have penetrated into the rural areas.
Back in the early 70’s, we would routinely pick up a religious radio station broadcasting from Bonaire (Netherlands Antilles) at night. I think it was 800 AM. We were (and are) located on Long Island, NY.
Update: well the station apparently still exists: here
Nighttime AM entertainment while I was growing up came primarily from
WOWO - Fort Wayne
WLAC - Nashville (blues)
Back in the mid-80’s I was in upstate New York (near Rochester) for a friend’s wedding and we were listening to a Cardinals baseball game on KMOX from St Louis. I forget what year it was exactly but the Cards were playing the Mets in the NLCS.
Yep, I grew up in north-central PA (10 miles from the border with NY). The only local station was part of the “Farm Radio Network” - without clear channel stations and skywave, no music.
WLS and WABC were standards at night. I once picked up WWL in New Orleans (1050 miles away).
Driving home from Santa Clarita to L.A., after visiting my brother for the evening, I often used to hear a Denver station.
When we had the earthquake in 1994, since all the local stations were knocked out, I got my first news from a San Francisco station by listening to my car radio.
Quoting myself to add data: the distance from Bonaire to NY is 2010 miles.
Not sure if anyone’s beat that.
During the late 70s and early 80s, while living in Spokane, I used to listen to KFI Los Angeles at night on a regular basis. As for other long-distance stations, I don’t remember hearing anything farther away than KOA in Denver.
The last time the Saints were in the playoffs (and lost), I was traveling with some friends from Rhode Island back to Louisiana. We took a detour and drove the length of Broadway from Harlem to southern Manhattan, listening to the Saints game on WWL New Orleans (870 AM).
My friend, who knows a lot about radio, said that it was unusual to be able to pick it up so far north, but it wouldn’t be unusual to get it all the way from southern California to Florida.
When I worked in radio, we used to get postcards from folks who could pick up our signal on the am band, even though we were a low-power sunup to sundown station.
I think we once skipped a signal up to Alaska, but don’t quote me on it.
Also, I looked through the thread, but could not find mention of the word “harmony” as it applies to radio frequencies. I have heard the word used, but am not familiar enough with its association to comment with any degree of certainty. Maybe someone in-thread could shed some light on this?
Also, in a somewhat related matter, I heard a few years ago that the AM band was going to be “cleaned up” - meaning “removal” of all static, etc., yet when I try to pull in a station on that band for a talk show, I still get the high pitched static and have to almost tune my radio the way a ham radio operator does. So what’s up with that?
Thanks
Q
When I worked in radio, there were (and maybe still are) radio fan(atics) who specialized in tuning in faraway signals. They’d send radio stations cards with return postage, asking you to confirm you were running X programming at such-and-such a time, to verify their fantastic listening experience for the record.
One time when I was at a radio station in Iowa City, we got a card from a guy in Greenland.
This particular station (a 1000-watter) had a very weird directional antenna system to prevent interference with other stations at or near the same spot on the AM band. True, you could pick up the station in faraway places - but at the same time the signal would die out 20 miles away.
Here in central Ohio I frequently tune in WCBS-N.Y. and WBZ-Boston at night for news/talk.
With regular broadcast band radio, the most distant stations I’ve ever heard were a ton of FM stations in the Tampa-St. Petersburg and Sarasota area from far west Texas, thanks to tropospheric ducting.
On AM, I’ve been able to hear Chicago clear channel stations everywhere I’ve lived; Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Texas, Ohio and New York. I can usually receive KMOX (1120, St. Louis) here in Buffalo. WWKB (1520, Buffalo) is highly directional to the east; drive west of the city at night, and after about 20 miles WWKB fades out and KOKC (Oklahoma City) often takes its place.
Never heard a European station on AM in Buffalo, although I’m told it’s possible away from major cities on the Atlantic coast. I’ve heard Cuban stations in Florida, but that’s not really something I would call “distant”.
On the Canadian side of Lake Erie, about 35 miles of Buffalo in a hamlet called Long Beach, on a car radio I can receive a station at almost every FM channel. Stations from Buffalo, Erie, Ashtabula, Cleveland, Hamilton, Toronto, London, Kitchener … amazing. When my parents used to have a cottage at that location, I could receive a clear (analog) TV station on every VHF channel, and every second or third UHF channel.
A followup: Buffalo must be the only city in the continental US where there’s no local Spanish-language radio station, and none that can be received at night. The only accordions one will hear on the radio in Buffalo are Polish polkas, and there’s no shortage of them; one AM station still has a nightly polka show, and many broadcast polka shows on Sunday. Why Sunday is polka day for Buffalo radio, I don’t know.
I can hear stations in French, Italian, Polish, various Eastern European languages, and Chinese (a couple of dialects, based on the cadence of the speech), but nothing in Spanish. Strange, I know.
Unless you count a program or two on a low-wattage public radio station, there’s no Spanish-language radio station in Spokane either. However, not too far out of town, there are a few out among the smaller towns of the Columbia Basin and the Yakima Valley.
Boise’s 50,000 watt station (KBOI) used to set aside a few hours of programming on Sunday night for Basque programming. When I first heard it, I couldn’t figure out what the language was except for the fact that it wasn’t Spanish and sounded vaguely Eastern European (which it clearly wasn’t).