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Areas with No Radio reception

It's all river valley between them, and Dyersburg sits maybe 250 ft above the river. When surrounded by otherwise flat land,
it's as if the receiver has an elevated antenna.
Certainly there's no terrain to block signals in this instance.

Cumulatively, I have spent about 6 months in Dyersburg since 1988.
It has other quirks, but we won't go into that.
 
Northern North Dakota along SR 5 has no FM reception aside from KBTO-Bottineau. which does get out fairly well. Very few AMs as well (CKLQ 880 for across the border comes in best). If Canada drops AM entirely, there would be spots there with no reception whatsoever.
 
clichemoth said:
Northern North Dakota along SR 5 has no FM reception aside from KBTO-Bottineau. which does get out fairly well. Very few AMs as well (CKLQ 880 for across the border comes in best). If Canada drops AM entirely, there would be spots there with no reception whatsoever.
Click to expand...
I second that... There are areas where only a few faint AMs can be heard -- 540 from Canada and 570 WNAX Yankton among them. On FM there is a station out of Minot that comes and goes with the rise and fall of I-94 over the hills. Stations out of Dickinson and Williston serve I-94 in the western part of ND through Glendive MT.

Coincidentally, parts of northern and western ND have analog-only AMPS cell phone service.
 
South Point, on the Big Island of Hawaii, is just about dead to most radio reception. Forget about the seek button. There is one FM booster on but nothing else. The AM's from Hilo and Kona just don't make it down there with usable signals, and the strongest AM is either KGU 760 or KRTR 650 in far away Honolulu, over 150 miles away. And even those are only putting about .2 mV/m into Ocean View on the south west coast.
At South Point proper, it is really quiet on the radio dial.
 
Tok, Alaska, Uganda and Cherokee, NC - what a group. ;D

I can attest to a few of locations given (but not Alaska or Uganda!) Cherokee has a casino and is something of a resort town, I guess? It's over the mountains from Gatlinburg, TN, itself lacking strong radio signals... I remember driving the highway between Gatlinburg and Cherokee through the mountains, finding maybe one AM signal that was very spotty, several FM's that were hit and miss depending on what switchback I was on, and XM was pretty much useless. :(

I'll add one more town to the list: Van Horn, TX. There is one religious FM translator in town, and other than that, FM is pretty much dead. Just out of reach of El Paso and Carlsbad, the best I could get was faint audio behind the static in the car or in a second story motel room.

It's in the general (for Texas) region of Valentine, Presidio, Alpine, etc.
 
I kinda beg to differ for Cherokee, NC. Though AM is a challenge due to the mountains, you can still hear a few stations including WWNC from Asheville. My experience on the FM band is WKSF (99.9) Asheville is very strong since their antenna is only 30 miles away at over a mile high in elevation as well as a few other stations able to overcome the terrain.

For the real fun, try a little FM dxing atop of Newfound Gap, Clingman's Dome or any of the peaks of that area. An FM receiver is overloaded with signals from Knoxville, Chattanooga, Atlanta and as far away as Augusta, GA.
 
Funny that someone just mentioned South Point Hawaii, because I just returned from a weeklong trip around the Big Island and did a quick band scan from that spot using a factory car radio in my dodge rental.

As for FM, I didn't get anything except for faint signals from 93.9(KLUA/simulcast with KPVS-Hilo) and 99.1(KAGB/simulcast of KAPA-Hilo) both located near Kailua-Kona. Most of the Honolulu and Maui FM stations came in fair/good from Manuka State park-northward towards Kona. The Hilo FM stations were gone just a few miles west of Volcanoes NP.

On AM, most of the Honolulu area stations were coming in quite well with 650, 690, 760, 830, 940, 1040, and 1500 coming in best and 870 the weakest. The strongest Maui stations were 550 and 900 (fair) and 1110 was poor. 570 and 720 out of Kauai came in good. As for the Big Island stations, 620 was fair, 670, 790, and 850 were good and 1060 was poor.
 
radiorob2.0 said:
For the real fun, try a little FM dxing atop of Newfound Gap, Clingman's Dome or any of the peaks of that area. An FM receiver is overloaded with signals from Knoxville, Chattanooga, Atlanta and as far away as Augusta, GA.
Click to expand...

I can vouch for that! For those who don't know, Clingman's Dome is the highest point in Tennessee and the 2nd or 3rd highest point east of the Mississippi River. I took my Sony Walkman up there and personally logged stations from each of those cities you mentioned (plus one from Greensboro, NC). I would love to take a little portable TV up there and see what's possible.

As for what radiorob2.0 said about Cherokee, WKSF is a bit listenable, mainly on the Eastern side of Cherokee, but still not a stong signal. WIMZ 103.5 from Knoxville comes in a little bit but is very much covered in static. If I had some money, I'd love to start an FM there to serve the people of Cherokee. There's a big opportunity there.
 
From what i can see, the Big Bend area of TX has to rank up there; I remember camping there in the 70's and there was nothing on the dial at that time during the day; including KMID Midland as B.C. pointed out. I remember the AM radio as being average for weak station reception. Fortunately the trip was over the Thanksgiving holiday and nighttime brought a bunch of stations all over but during the day, the bands (AM-FM) were dead.
Parts of Nevada have to rank up there as well, maybe not as bad as the Big Bend. I confess I haven't been out there yet (other than Vegas, Mesquite, andf Laughlin). I wonder what steps residents (what few they are) take to get some sort of relaiable signals (on either AM or FM) out there? I'm sure the measures have to be quite extraordinary otherwise they be SOL (signals out of luck) as far as radio (or TV) is concerned. Interesting, informative posts so far. Are there any Aussies or folks from other countres out there?
 
Definitely the middle of Nevada. I've been on hwy 95 between Tonopah and who knows where, and found absolutely nothing- not even FM- until I got closer to Reno.
 
What about being out on the ocean?

I've always wanted to take a cruise so I could see how far the radio & TV stations carry over water! :D

I've seen how some AM stations put great signals over salt-water paths--in Mobile, AL I always was able to get stations from Tampa and Orlando along the coast--but somewhere over water it must be all dead during the day.
 
Zach said:
What about being out on the ocean?

I've always wanted to take a cruise so I could see how far the radio & TV stations carry over water! :D
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, that's fun. I've taken 2 cruises out of Tampa, FL, into the Gulf Of Mexico, and down to the Western Caribbean. It was very interesting to see which signals made it out into the water.

It was also interesting to test that on cell phone signals too. The first cruise, when I had T-Mobile, I had service for quite a few miles out. It was very impressive. However on the 2nd cruise when I had Nextel, it dropped really fast. We'll see on cruise #3 next month now that I have Verizon ;D
 
All things being equal Verizon's 850 MHz signal should outperform T-Mobile's 1900 MHz. Verizon may offer some off-shore cell sites. I know there are several sites (850 MHz GSM) in the Gulf of Mexico for the oil rigs.

Cingular has begun offering cell signals on select cruises, through a satellite uplink. The roaming prices are through the roof!
 
Zach said:
What about being out on the ocean?

I've always wanted to take a cruise so I could see how far the radio & TV stations carry over water! :D

I've seen how some AM stations put great signals over salt-water paths--in Mobile, AL I always was able to get stations from Tampa and Orlando along the coast--but somewhere over water it must be all dead during the day.
Click to expand...

You might find some interesting things at night. Many AM stations beam all their power out to sea at the nearest coastline - and can potentially be stronger out in the Caribbean than they are at the other end of their own market...

Then again, the interference from high-powered stations in Latin America might mask it all...
 
W9WI (and others),

A couple of years ago I took a cruise from Miami to Cozemel, the station on 1320 in Venice (before they became WDDV, "the Dove" was clearly audible below Cuba on the way to Mexico in the afternoon, as I was listening to a NASCAR race on MRN radio with my Walkman on deck (see their day pattern from radio-locator: http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WDDV&service=AM&status=L&hours=D). Also if I recall 620 in Tampa, some of WWL and 560 and 610 from Miami. At night of course the big clears come in but a lot of Latin stations to cochannel with. A number of Florida and Gulf Coast stations have to throw a lot of signal over water just to put a decent signal into their local market, using directional antennas to reduce interference. An example is WFLF in Orlando, more signal to the fish in the Gulf and Atlantic than on land: http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WFLF&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

Also several years ago a friend of mine sailed in a race to Bermuda from Daytona Beach, although he is not a DX'er he mentioned you could hear a number of east coast AM stations on the way over...

Bill in FL
 
KE4KLS_Radio said:
W9WI (and others),

A couple of years ago I took a cruise from Miami to Cozemel, the station on 1320 in Venice (before they became WDDV, "the Dove" was clearly audible below Cuba on the way to Mexico in the afternoon, as I was listening to a NASCAR race on MRN radio with my Walkman on deck
Bill in FL
Click to expand...

1320 was WAMR then and I experienced the same reception when I too a cruise down there too. In fact at one point, it was the only U.S. AM signal I could hear (this was near Cuba.) Back then that was quite a thrill for me, since at the time I worked for WAMR and the other Clear Channel Sarasota market stations.
 
What about Sekiu, WA? FM was dead, only listenable AM station was CKMO 900 in Victoria.
 
A couple of years ago I was in Negril Jamaica. On my walkman radio, I could not get an AM signals from Jamaica. I kept trying but never heard any local ams. I did here a lot of FMs. I did hear a number of Cuban stations, including the Radio Reloj clock stations. But what really surprised me was hearing, loud and clear, 560 AM KLVI from Beaumont, Texas... a station that I can usually pick up at my home in Houston. Now that is a signal that travelled over a lot of salt water!
 
One area that had little or hardly any FM reception is the Nat'l Radio Astronomy Observatory in Pocahontas Co., WV, not far from the VA border. I think that's where the FM signal can't interefere with the radio astronomy. Might be a good place for dxing. I visited the observatory back in the 90s.
 
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