Good places to live to pull in a ton of stations

[Negin]

When I stayed with relatives in the Livermore Valley back in the 90s, their stereo could pick up stations from Sacramento and Stockton as well as many from SF. They had a rotator to get stations from San Jose. Seems to be any town starting with the letter "S" there!

 

[KilowattKat]

Yeah, there's really no good place to get *everything*

Try telling that to @SomeRadioGuy ....

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Try telling that to @SomeRadioGuy ....

Ontario.... Japan..... Mexico city... Iran.... romania .. lithuana on AM up here are somewhat easy pickins.

50kw 1440 and 1287 in Sapporo, Japan are often very listenable almost every morning

 

[CentralFL]

Also being 15 miles farther from the many Orlando translators!

Yes. All of the full class-C's from Tampa, 93.3, 94.1, 94.9, etc. come in just fine. You CAN occasionally hear the Orlando translators on those frequencies for a second or so in the car if there is tropping going on, but not enough to be a problem.

Although the lower powered Tampa market stations like 104.7 and 105.5 have long-since been buried by translators.

 

[Patrick 29582]

I would add Dubuque, Iowa to this list - can hear stations from 4 states and its hilly terrain in the Driftless Area is great for this kind of thing

I spent a few summers there in the 1980s. It was a challenge but sometimes you could get Madison or 93.3 from LaCrosse. Quad cities and Waterloo no problem..Not nearly the translators there are today so there was a lot of open FM band. Chicago clear channel AMs were audible daytime.

 

[tvnut]

Conversely, there are places in the western U.S. where signals fade away, at least on FM. There are a couple of spots in western Nebraska where FM (in a car) gets down to four or five good signals, with flickers of others. Of course, that's the place to be during e-skip.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Conversely, there are places in the western U.S. where signals fade away, at least on FM. There are a couple of spots in western Nebraska where FM (in a car) gets down to four or five good signals, with flickers of others. Of course, that's the place to be during e-skip.

There arent a ton of places like that in western nebraska

I was in Laramie, got my signals than youd think.. and still had good fm dx... denver was non existant on tropo... tropo was mainly central/eastern wyoming and western nebraska.

I even had an eskip log in laramie wiping otu a translator 5 miles away

 

[dlf1]

Canyon Lake, Texas is a pretty good spot; you can pull in the San Antonio and Austin AM’s during the day (1490 out of Austin is a challenge, but there). 570, 660, 820 and 1080 make it out of DFW (770 did as well): a few Houston signals (610,650,740,790), Corpus Christi (1030), and couple from the border area (580 and 1570), plus Waco (1010).

All of the San Antonio and Austin FM’s can be received (95.7 from SA is tough and 107.7 from Georgetown/Austin doesn’t make it). Before all the LPFM’s/translators, 94.5 out of Houston was heard more often than not; tropo still brings in Houston, Corpus and Metroplex FM’s.

 

[RockTheRadio]

Thank you for all the replies. Sorry I misspelled Stations in the topic title. I just now noticed. I have read and liked all your replies so far and learned a lot. I will never lose interest in radio and check this board every day and I try to stay on top of every format change, tweak, or frequency swap! And loved getting e-skips and long distance dx catches back in the day.

 

[davideduardo]

Thank you for all the replies. Sorry I misspelled Stations in the topic title. I just now noticed.

I fixed it for you, a little late but as they say, "better than never".

I have read and liked all your replies so far and learned a lot. I will never lose interest in radio and check this board every day and I try to stay on top of every format change, tweak, or frequency swap! And loved getting e-skips and long distance dx catches back in the day.

I might add that during the decades I lived in Puerto Rico, normal reception to the west was not as good as to the north or south (the only close by thing to the east was the USVI, and those were semilocals). But on occasions, I'd found north Africans, particularly the powerful Algerians, around 3 PM even on a car radio. And on a few occasions, I had tunnels to Texas and Louisiana, with the best being KHEY 690 from El Paso before it went to its night directional but around 7 PM to 8 PM AST... an hour our two after our local sunset.

 

[secondchoice]

Yeah, there's really no good place to get *everything*, but it's always been my favorite area to pick up multiple markets at once.

Back in the 1980's around Cass WV there was a FM "dead zone" thanks to the Green Bank radio telescope. You could get a couple of VA FMs on hilltops. When WELK signed on they used the hillside as a "blocker". A lot of those restrictions have been lifted but my car FM scan didn't stop in Green Bank 4 years ago. Cell coverage was zip too. If you have time and don't mind curvy roads, you should see the Green Bank dish. It's amazing when it moves it another position. They had a visitors center that was free before DOGE. (Haven't been back since 2021). I guess they are the ultimate DXs trying to pick up ET's favorite radio station.

If you drive around the Great Smoky Mountains there are a lot of dead zones. Of course the mountain tops (Clingmans Dome parking lot etc.) you get Knoxville, Chattanooga, and some Atlanta Cs without tropo. Only a few translators during the day on a car radio. But some of the valleys are very quiet during daylight hours.

 

[RockTheRadio]

I fixed it for you, a little late but as they say, "better than never".

Thanks davideduardo!

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

In Genesee County Michigan, with a good FM radio, sensitive and selective, especially with an outdoor directional FM antenna, and better before Docket 80-90 and subsequent changes, IBOC sidebands on first adjacent channels, translators, and LPFM, you could get almost all stations from three adjacent markets, Detroit, Saginaw Bay City Midland, and Lansing, even regular reception, even some more powerful Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Northwest Michigan stations. This ended with many channel duplications nearby. There are some peaks on the ridge South of the County Lines at 1100 to 1200 feet AMSL. From some locations there, it's LOS to most of the stations in the adjacent Markets.

Rural, electrically quiet areas in Michigan with few strong AM signals, with scores of weak signals, they can be received with a 20-30 foot vertical wire and a tuned preamp. In Mecosta County, the Delco car radio would barely get WLS, WCFL, even WAIT, etc. Days, but with the short wire and tuned preamp, scores of stations came in very well. Before WTCM moved to 580 and now 50000 watts Day, you could get WILL a little. 950 was 500 watt DA WCLB over the Lake.

 

[ftballfan]

In Genesee County Michigan, with a good FM radio, sensitive and selective, especially with an outdoor directional FM antenna, and better before Docket 80-90 and subsequent changes, IBOC sidebands on first adjacent channels, translators, and LPFM, you could get almost all stations from three adjacent markets, Detroit, Saginaw Bay City Midland, and Lansing, even regular reception, even some more powerful Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Northwest Michigan stations. This ended with many channel duplications nearby. There are some peaks on the ridge South of the County Lines at 1100 to 1200 feet AMSL. From some locations there, it's LOS to most of the stations in the adjacent Markets.

Rural, electrically quiet areas in Michigan with few strong AM signals, with scores of weak signals, they can be received with a 20-30 foot vertical wire and a tuned preamp. In Mecosta County, the Delco car radio would barely get WLS, WCFL, even WAIT, etc. Days, but with the short wire and tuned preamp, scores of stations came in very well. Before WTCM moved to 580 and now 50000 watts Day, you could get WILL a little. 950 was 500 watt DA WCLB over the Lake.

There is a sizable portion of western Michigan in which many of the strongest AMs are from Wisconsin or Chicago

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

There is a sizable portion of western Michigan in which many of the strongest AMs are from Wisconsin or Chicago

About 45 years ago, I brought my Sony Portable with a Signal Strength Meter to a County Park about 25 miles North of Muskegon. Near Lake Michigan, WMAQ 670 and 5 kW WTMJ 620 were the strongest signals, estimated to be around a few millivolts/meter, whereas all the Muskegon stations were under 0.5 mV/m over a Sandy/Gravelly land path.

 

[ted chittenden]

Conversely, there are places in the western U.S. where signals fade away, at least on FM. There are a couple of spots in western Nebraska where FM (in a car) gets down to four or five good signals, with flickers of others. Of course, that's the place to be during e-skip.

The best FM skip I ever had was over at Big Lake, an 8,000-feet above sea level lake in far eastern Arizona. My family would do fishing trips there when I was younger. Since all save me liked to fish, I took along my Panasonic RF-2600 and D-exed. Back then, there were no locals in the area and when skip wasn't going on, the best you could hope for were the 92.9 and 93.9 frequencies in Flagstaff and possibly the 90.5 in Tucson--but you really had to play with the antenna to get those.

Anyway, it was the Sunday we arrived at the lake, and when I got out of the truck, extended my antenna, and started tuning around, I heard a lot from Tennessee to Louisiana to Texas to Missouri to southern Illinois to Kentucky. The stations kept fading in and out very quickly and I didn't have a recorder on hand but it was sure fun tuning up and down the dial for the hour or so the skip was in play. The skip returned around 5 hours later from the same areas and stayed for another hour, basically local sundown.

I never heard any more FM skip from Big Lake on this trip except for Thursday evening around 8pm when I was able to hear Bellingham, Washington, and Vancouver, BC for an hour or so.

And though we made trips to Big Lake since (my dad liked the trout he caught there), I never had the pleasure of hearing an FM skip opening like I did on the last Sunday in June of 1982.

P.S. If you were to go to Big Lake now (the last time I went was in 2000), you would hear a few locals that didn't exist in 1982 on the FM dial. These would include 92.1 from Holbrook (not a lot of power and quite a distance but it sure gets in there); 92.5 from Eagar; 95.7 from St. Johns; 101.7 from Springerville; and 106.7 from Pinetop(the 106.7 came on the air after the year 2000 but its transmitter and wattage are the same as the 92.5, 95.7 and 101.7 frequencies). Further away, you can hear Show Low at 98.5 (it was at 96.5 when I was last there); and the Gallup, NM, stations at 93.7 and 103.7. What I am saying is that if you went up to Big Lake today and had an FM skip opening like what I had in the summer of 1982, you would probably not catch as many stations as I did back then.

 

[gar hi]

Conversely, there are places in the western U.S. where signals fade away, at least on FM. There are a couple of spots in western Nebraska where FM (in a car) gets down to four or five good signals, with flickers of others. Of course, that's the place to be during e-skip.

There's an area on Highway 1 between Monterey and Big Sur where I was driving south once and for a while, I coudn't get any FM stations at all.

 

[gar hi]

I might add that during the decades I lived in Puerto Rico, normal reception to the west was not as good as to the north or south (the only close by thing to the east was the USVI, and those were semilocals). But on occasions, I'd found north Africans, particularly the powerful Algerians, around 3 PM even on a car radio. And on a few occasions, I had tunnels to Texas and Louisiana, with the best being KHEY 690 from El Paso before it went to its night directional but around 7 PM to 8 PM AST... an hour our two after our local sunset.

All the time I lived in Florida I never once heard any FM E Skip from Puerto Rico, as much as I tried.

It was mostly from the north, sometimes west, and rarely from the south.

Though I did get analog TV channel 2 from San Juan a couple times back in the 80's but as we know, E Skip on that frequency is so much more common than it is up on the FM band or even the other TV VHF TV channels below FM.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Look at Page 2-27 and Page 2-28 at the following link for a statistical prediction of Sporadic E.

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-NAB-Engineering/NAB-5th-Edition/Section-2-NAB-Engineering-Fifth-Edition-3.pdf

 

[rjoc]

A great spot for FM DXing is the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, Maine; elevation 1530', it's the highest point along the east coast of the US. I have been up there during tropo skip and picked up FMs from Boston to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, one needs to make reservations and pay to drive up to the summit now due to parking and traffic issues during summer tourist season. There is a brief window when it's free to get up there in late spring and late fall where it's free and not quite as crowded. And, not surprisingly it closes by early November due to snow and ice and stays closed thru the winter until May.