• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Best locations for AM radio reception.

vibe said:
Re; last post of getting KLIF 1190 from West Coast of FLA during the day- where was approx location?
Click to expand...

Bradenton, FL (about 35-40 miles south of Tampa)

I only got the signal once, but of course I never purposely tried to get it again after I received it the first time. It was sometime around local sunset while Texas stations would still be on day power, although it was getting dark in Florida. I see on radio-locator that the call letters of 1190 are now KFXR.

This may be off topic, but many times while living there I actally got Texas FMs via E-Skip during the summer months. I even still have a tape I recorded of what I received (mainly Houston stations) during one summer in 1992 I believe.
 
Thanks for the location-I had a feeling that the area might be condusive to over the Gulf reception. I don't spend a lot of time in Fla in the summer but I remember getting stations on practically every FM frequency at times in summer. I had a "crappY" AM radio in the truck (OK maybe average) and never played around w/ AM reception except that WWL near Englewood Beach, 1 hr S of Bradenton, was quite strong all day long. I'm kinda excited (well a little) because the radio in this other car has very strong AM reception. All I can compare it to was the truck and the fact that I get stations well beyond the radio locator contours for "barely preceptible."
 
WWL travels well across the salt path of the Gulf, but loses signal quickly as you move inland. I could hear it in Ocala on my Sangean ATS-803A, but barely.

When I lived in Ocean Springs, MS, 620/St. Petersburg came in like a local station during the daytime. Weaker but still listenable were 540/Pine Hills, 720/Hernando, and 970/Tampa.
 
If it's possible to get Tampa from the Mississippi coast and even stations pretty far inland near Orlando, it would seem that getting Texas during the day is more psooible that previously thought. But when looking for great locations for AM reception what about these?
1. Outer tip of Cape Cod near Eastham/Provincetown
2. Outer banks of NC
3. Tybee Island and Jekyll Island GA
4. Key West FL
Any others, particularly on the west coast?
 
I've tried DXing on a Carnival Cruise ship out of Tampa while in the Gulf of Mexico. Don't remember hearing any Texas AMs out there, but I remember being most impressed that I could hear WAMR 1320 AM Venice, FL (Now WDDV) almost all the way down past Cuba both day and night. Had a couple of other interesting DXes during that trip too.

Another place I've always wanted to AM DX was the Bermuda Triangle. Anyone know what you can get out there during the daytime?
 
Don't know much about the bermuda Triangle but 1320 out of Venice has limited range on the mainland, maybe 30 mi in each direction. To get it so far out at sea... shows how inconsistent radio can be.
 
vibe said:
If it's possible to get Tampa from the Mississippi coast and even stations pretty far inland near Orlando, it would seem that getting Texas during the day is more psooible that previously thought. But when looking for great locations for AM reception what about these?
1. Outer tip of Cape Cod near Eastham/Provincetown
2. Outer banks of NC
3. Tybee Island and Jekyll Island GA
4. Key West FL
Any others, particularly on the west coast?
Click to expand...

I've had limited experience with the Cape. NY area stations come in better than they do inland...you can also pick up a few "blowtorches" from the Canadian maritimes.

As for the West Coast, San Diego stations for the most part are clearly audible up to and slightly beyond Santa Barbara (200 miles away). Something of the reverse is true, although the stations in and around Santa Barbara don't have much juice.

Most L.A. stations sound like locals in San Diego. In the other direction, the general direction of the Coastline shifts from Northwest to North a little past Santa Barbara, so the L.A. stations start fading.

Fully-powered San Francisco stations make it down the coast about two-thirds of the way to L.A.

Portland stations don't do much along the Oregon coast because Portland is about 50 miles inland, and the mountain range west of the city takes a lot out of the signals before they hit the coastline.

Seattle and Vancouver stations boom up and down the Puget sound. The Vancouver stations tend to be directional, but several of them are clearly heard in Seattle. The major Seattle stations have problems in Central Vancouver, but some have pretty good signals in the Suburbs. (The distance involved here is about 175 miles). CBU in Vancouver (690) and KIRO in Seattle (710) have the "stud" signals, but a few others aren't far behind them.

In Hawaii....the Honolulu a.m. stations come in pretty much like locals on the windward sides of Maui and Hawaii (the big island) facing Oahu (While on the windward side of Oahu, the Honolulu stations sometimes have problems just getting across the Koolau mountains!)
 
I listened to a NASCAR race on 1320 out of Venice while taking that cruise to Cozemel a few years ago, along the Cuban coast. See their daytime coverage map, most of its signal is in the Gulf:

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WDDV&service=AM&status=L&hours=D


I would have to say Ocracoke Island or Cape Hatteras in NC would be the best location. Lower man-made noise, salt water daytime paths from New York to Florida and the potential for trans-atlantic DX make for interesting listening :).

Bill in FL
 
RMarino said:
Another place I've always wanted to AM DX was the Bermuda Triangle. Anyone know what you can get out there during the daytime?
Click to expand...

Nothing -- all the signals just disappear. (I heard the same thing about Argentina in the 1980s.) ;)
 
While on vacation this summer, I went to the Rocky Mountain region, an area which I try to go to at least once every two years. 850-KOA stops on scan almost to Salina, KS to the west, but fades quite a bit while in the mountains, much closer to the tower in Parker, CO. The FMs in Denver suffer from horrible multi-path, even while inside town, and below their towers in the mountains to the southwest of Denver. The Denver FM's sound MUCH BETTER in the plains of eastern Colo. While in Kansas, I picked up the mighty 570- WNAX, in Yankton, SD, a 5 KW station which claims to have the tallest AM tower in the U.S. While the ground conductivity is amazing out in this part of the U.S., AM stations (especially in the plains), are aided by lesser interference from power lines and nothing being in the way, like mountains.
 
>While in Kansas, I picked up the mighty 570- WNAX, in Yankton, SD, a 5 KW station which claims to have the tallest AM tower in the U.S. While the ground conductivity is amazing out in this part of the U.S., AM stations (especially in the plains), are aided by lesser interference from power lines and nothing being in the way, like mountains.

I lived in Hays, KS for a few years. Even though it's about 350 miles away, WNAX is known and listened to by locals since it's the only place on the dial you can hear the Minnesota Twins broadcasts.

Now THAT'S a signal!
 
It seems that the western great plains is THE hot spot for day time AM radio reception (not counting salt water paths) or is it? Being an east coaster, I was surprised how far the signals go. Yes, I got KRVN 880 Lexington NE and KOA 850 Denver on seek during the day at least 250 mi. Wished I had taken a shot at WBAP-820 Ft. Worth on manual tune when I was in Garden City KS (about 100 mi S of Hays.
 
wpiv926 said:
The FMs in Denver suffer from horrible multi-path, even while inside town, and below their towers in the mountains to the southwest of Denver. The Denver FM's sound MUCH BETTER in the plains of eastern Colo.
Click to expand...

The FMs in Salt Lake City also suffer from multipath if your receiver isn't within line-of-sight of the towers. Both Denver and SLC have mountains just ajacient to the city. I recall 60 dbm signals being unlistenable. SLC FM's, like Denver's, also sound much better in the Salt Flats-even 100 miles from SLC!
 
Being in Michigan, over 1000 miles away from Denver, i've often wondered just how far out into the Plains the Denver FM's make it before even the die-hard listeners would call them unlistenable.

There are lots of trees and hills in my area. On top of that, the stations aren't as big as the ones in Denver. About 70-80 miles is the best we can do with our signals. 100-125 miles if there's good weather and an open frequency.
 
Lawppy said:
Being in Michigan, over 1000 miles away from Denver, i've often wondered just how far out into the Plains the Denver FM's make it before even the die-hard listeners would call them unlistenable.

There are lots of trees and hills in my area. On top of that, the stations aren't as big as the ones in Denver. About 70-80 miles is the best we can do with our signals. 100-125 miles if there's good weather and an open frequency.
Click to expand...


My first radio gig was at KNAB in Burlington, Colorado. Burlington is just *barely* in Colorado, 13 miles west of the Kansas state line on I-70. Not much to do there for a 19-year-old kid, so we would go to either Denver or Colo Springs on the weekends.

The mountaintop FMs in both Denver and the Springs were good out to about 110-120 miles on a car radio. Co-channels weren't an issue here since there was hardly anything else on the dial. In fact, KNAB in Burlington was the only FM between Denver and Colby, KS back in those days. That's a distance of 230 miles along a major interstate highway!
 
The big Denver AMs put a listenable daytime signal well into Kansas and Nebraska. KOA, KLZ and KHOW are probably the best examples of this.
 
It seems that the western great plains is THE hot spot for day time AM radio reception (not counting salt water paths) or is it? Being an east coaster, I was surprised how far the signals go. Yes, I got KRVN 880 Lexington NE and KOA 850 Denver on seek during the day at least 250 mi. Wished I had taken a shot at WBAP-820 Ft. Worth on manual tune when I was in Garden City KS (about 100 mi S of Hays.
Click to expand...

It's definitely not Southern Michigan. We gotta have the worst ground conductivity in the country.

Detroit and Chicago are the best we can do with our daytime AM reception. And even the Chicago stations are a little scratchy. The real breadwinners during regular conditions would be WKRC and WLW from Cincinnati.
 
Wow. This is a very interesting thread. I'm not a true/dedicated DXer--just an old radio guy. Old enough to have worked a lot in AM radio.

Here's a quick DX story: I was a mid-day jock at 50-kw 540/WGTO (now Orlando's WFLF) 30 years ago; the station was a daytimer, then, so there was no "night-time" skip. But the 4-tower day directional rig shoots straight east into the Atlantic. Got a reception (QSL?) card from Italy, detailing the Dolly Parton & Eddie Rabbit tunes along with one of my bits.

I've always wondered: Was that the "saltwater" effect? Or was it ionospheric "bounce" created by the time difference? That is, it was "daytime" in Florida but "night" in Italy. Any thoughts?
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom