Baldwin County, Alabama, on the Gulf of Mexico:
Day: Nothing
Night: A really nasty mix of Cuba and WLS. Even when WLS is booming in, it's usually 50/50 with Cuba here. Disappointing, because I'd love to give my little Sony AM stereo Walkman something to hear at night, and I understand they still run C-QUAM after dark.
Since the thread meandered over to in-building penetration, I'd like to offer some observations I've had in various buildings.
When I lived in Birmingham, I worked in a small industrial shop that was mostly computer-free, although there were a lot of motor-driven machines. The building itself was all metal. Worst of all, we were on the western slope of a valley about 2/3rds the way up the side, and all the Birmingham FMs and most of the AMs were behind and "below ground", so to speak.
Despite all those hardships, FM and AM reception was possible everywhere in the building. The full class Cs and C0s were easy to receive even on the cheapest radios. C3s and below were a lot more challenged, and you could forget about any class A unless it was to our east, because then it was like being high up on a ridge. Most of the FMs were 8-14 miles to our west.
The AMs generally fared worse thanks to impulse noise from the motors and the fact that all but a few of the TX sites are even further west. WXJC's 50 kW directional signal from Tarrant was good during the day, and Irondale's local 1480 was only a few miles down the road, so their 5 kW was clear as a bell, and even their nighttime signal was decent, at 28 watts. Everything else was challenging.
A lot of the guys with radios would listen to the Anniston/Oxford area stations despite them being much lower powered and a good 30-40 miles away. It was just a clear view to the east, like being up on a ridge.
Down here in Baldwin County, I snuck (sneaked?) a radio into the local hospital ("Vincent Price Memorial" as the locals call it) one night when I was babysitting a sick family member and the thick concrete building really did a number on everything. The hospital itself is only three stories, and we were on the first floor the whole time, so we were in the belly of the beast. And despite having a cadre of full Cs or close to it, the FMs were not even clear enough to listen to once you got into the maze-like hallways away from windows. Rooms? No problem, but the hallways you might as well have been in a bunker underground. It was neat. There was no skywave reception at all on AM even in the rooms. The only local AM we have has 43 paltry watts at night and was mostly inaudible in the hospital as well. But surprisingly, their 250 watt translator, on the AM stick about 2 miles away, was by far the best FM signal in the entire hospital, even beating the 100 kW stations whose towers were only about 16 miles away over flat terrain.
Having stayed in a lot of hotels over the years, I often made a point if I had the time to walk around the hotel complexes with a radio and go up to a high floor to DX from a hallway window for a hot minute. Frankly, it seems hotels are the worst buildings I've been in for FM and AM reception. AM dies a painful death as soon as get inside these places thanks to all the TVs and electronics. FM is very very spotty in interior halls, even in cheaper hotels constructed of wood.
