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Places where the FM dial is blank

B

BMR

(if I can be forgiven two threads on similar topics)

Over on National TV, I was asking about places with no OTA TV reception. But what about places with no FM coverage?


I guess they must be rarer, given that most radio listening is still done via an FM receiver... but I'm sure there must be some?
 
Pretty much no FM reception at Neah Bay WA and down until you hit Forks, where "Twilight 96.7" KBDB is, and a couple of translators.

Also, of course US-95 north of Las Vegas is a dead zone for miles and miles and miles, except for translators in Beatty and a few stations in Tonopah.

-crainbebo
 
I lived not far from that dead zone, just over the CA/NV state line between Tonopah and Bishop. It wasn't quite a dead zone circa 1988-89 when I was there, thanks to the big signal of KIBS 100.7 from Bishop. There are three more FMs now with similar signals that also cover the area, KSRW 92.5 Independence, KBHR 93.3 Big Pine and KWTW 88.5 Bishop.

There are still some spots along I-84 between Baker OR and the Ontario/Boise metro where FM is almost absent. Go south of there and things get even emptier.
 
The place closest to my home where there is little or no FM is Green Bank, WV, where there is the steerable radio telescope at an observatory where FM signals can't interfere with the radio signals that the telescope receives. Vehicles at the premises have diesel engines to minimize interference.
 
Fields, OR - no AM nor FM reception.

-crainbebo
 
Van Horn and Marfa, TX have very little on the dial besides a couple low powers and what comes across the border from Mexico.
 
Of course it can receive west coast AM stations at night. 3 fringe AM stations that Fields Oregon that it could receive under perfect conditions Boise, Reno and one other that I don't recall the location. Only one full power FM station within 100 miles of Fields.
 
I don't know if the entire FM band was completely blank but going south on the coastal Highway 1 once you get a ways past Monterey and the mountains start getting tall, there was a stretch where I couldn't find anything at all when I searched a good portion of the dial.
 
In Fields at night you'd probably get stations like KBOI, KSL, KOMO, KGO, KFBK, CKMX etc...but under perfect conditions pretty much nothing but a faint KBOI and KKOH in the day.

-crainbebo
 
Trans-Canada highway between Thunder Bay, Ontario and Winnipeg.

Let me put it this way....for the middle leg of the more-than-400 mile journey, it's a good idea to have an iPod or CD player!
 
purpledevil said:
Wow! That's got to be eerie. Absolutely nothing.
http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=fields&state=OR&x=14&y=6
Click to expand...

But what about this?
http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/lo...b=Y&format=&dx=2&radius=&freq=&sort=freq&sid=

Also, are there any places in the lower 48 states where you get absolutely *NO* daytime AM reception, not even QRSS CW carriers, even with an ultra-sensitive SDR connected to a steerable and tunable beverage antenna? It must be in an unattenuated, manmade noise free area - no cheating allowed by doing it inside a screen room in Carlsbad Caverns next to a plasma TV. :p (BTW I understand rbrucecarter5 has heard Chicago AMs in Lubbock, TX, at midday with a SR + 4-foot loop, and has heard IBOC sidebands from a Chicago station on a car radio + whip antenna in western NM. I'm guessing the SDR + beverage would be upwards of 80-120dB more sensitive, although not taking into account atmospheric noise limits.)


Also, speaking of driving through Canada - assuming you had a good car radio, like a Delco AM Stereo or the Pioneer Supertuner 3D Bruce Carter talks about, could you....
drive west at like 140 km/h from Northwest Territories to Alaska, while listening to the same AM station the entire day, strong enough to trip scan the entire way (while far enough that reception of an FM on their tower is impossible w/o tropo/Es)?
 
Last edited:
On my drive up to Alaska 30 years ago, I stopped in Tok AK. There was absolutely no signal at all on the AM dial at night! I had no idea such a thing was possible and it's wide open!
 
dxtrfn80 said:
Of course it can receive west coast AM stations at night. 3 fringe AM stations that Fields Oregon that it could receive under perfect conditions Boise, Reno and one other that I don't recall the location. Only one full power FM station within 100 miles of Fields.
Click to expand...

There is an NPR relay on 95.1 in Denio, just over the border in Nevada. Only about 20 miles from Fields., but probably very low powered?
 
purpledevil said:
Van Horn and Marfa, TX have very little on the dial besides a couple low powers and what comes across the border from Mexico.
Click to expand...
That entire Big Bend area is really sparse on radio content. I remember visiting about 16 years ago, the dials were almost blank. You would see signs and advertisements for businesses in Midland - which to the Big Bend area is the big city! One thing that is alarming to me, at least two places I visited you could literally wade across the river to Mexico and back again - no fence, no guards - nothing. Must be a real pain for Homeland Security these days. One of those locations was on Spy Kids 2 - the water is maybe six inches deep next to the cliff, it is a little trail part way up the side for the national park. You can really see how shallow the water is. It was really tempting to wade across just to say I'd done it. That was 1997 so nobody would have cared.
 
Big Lake Texas. A couple of CP's have been issued in auctions, but nothing yet. KPDB - FM & KWTR - 104.1 FM were both deleted. The town had an AM many years back, also deleted.

This was posted on Youtube. A actual dial scan of...nothing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3ApBXkCV_I
 
Most of Kentucky (except for some hollers) is covered by the class C stations from a nearby city. The city-grade of 101.1 in Hazard (WSGS) butts up against the Lexington stations, and covers most of the way to the Virginia line. Assuming that WSGS ever got back to full-power, they had an STA for reduce power for many years.
 
I would have tried Valley of Fire when I was in Vegas 2 years ago, But my whole family was there

Have my one tried FM in the Valley of Fire?
 
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