Places where the FM dial is blank

[BobOnTheJob]

US93 or US95 (don't recall which now--it's been 15 years) about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. Might as well have been on Mars. Manually tuned the entire AM and FM dial during the day and got no trace of anything at mid day. Very unreal experience. Even 720 KDWN was MIA.

 

[purpledevil]

Interesting, although some radios require a fairly strong signal to stop the seek.

The only way to be sure you have a *truly* blank dial is to select manual tuning and go through all 200 possible channels, one at a time. Expect a sore thumb by the time you hit 108!!!

That Ford must not have much more than a clothes hanger as an antenna. Most San Angelo stations can be heard in Big Lake. Not the strongest signal strength, but listenable enough.

 

[ftballfan]

That Ford must not have much more than a clothes hanger as an antenna. Most San Angelo stations can be heard in Big Lake. Not the strongest signal strength, but listenable enough.

My mom had a 2000 Ford, and very few signals were able to stop the seek on a consistent basis in Manistee, MI. There were parts of town in which 94.9 WKZC, 103.5 WTCM, and 106.3 WKLA would not stop the seek, and all of them should provide roughly a 70 dBU signal to Manistee. However, her 2013 Ford has a more sensitive seek and HD Radio

 

[mimo]

The Coquihally highway in B.C from just south of Merrit to just north of Hope has absolutely no FM radio at all. Back in the 80's when they built the highway, FM didn't exist in small towns at all, so that was extended to 10 minutes south of Kamloops going north right into the town of Hope itself. At that time there was no FM radio from Salmon Arm to 5 minutes west of Revelstoke on the trans Canada...then another blank spot from 5 minutes east of Revelstoke until the actual town of Lake Louise Alberta. You listened to AM to hear radio on that stretch.

 

[Mikon8er]

Adak, Alaska is reportedly devoid of audible FM stations. I don't think dominant atmospheric conditions that far north allow for any real tropospheric ducting or E skip activity either. There may be some distant catches on AM and shortwave at night though. Besides that, there's millions of "locales" if you will in very remote areas of Canada distanced from sizable towns, although the tsunami of AM to FM station conversions in places where the space on the spectrum exists has somewhat but far from entirely changed this.

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/lo...b=Y&format=&dx=1&radius=&freq=&sort=freq&sid=

That there is another surreal and terrifying experience in the making!

 

[MarioMania]

US93 or US95 (don't recall which now--it's been 15 years) about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. Might as well have been on Mars. Manually tuned the entire AM and FM dial during the day and got no trace of anything at mid day. Very unreal experience. Even 720 KDWN was MIA.

Wow, 15 years..2 years ago my family had plans to camp at the Valley of Fire Nevada State Park, But it fell though, We just rented a house

It would be nice DXing at the Valley of Fire

 

[fordranger797]

Hey guys! Not to re-open this thread, but I would like to confirm what Crainbebo stated. The Olympic Peninsula in Washington State is a STRANGE place for radio reception. I love driving around with my radio on "scan". The FM dial is effectively dark.

 

[charlestondxman]

Pretty much any area within 100 miles of the Atlantic Ocean gets a decent amount of radio stations. There are very few, if any locations that can't get a single FM station. Those areas can get AM usually.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Dalton Haul Road

Ice Road Trucker Lisa Kelly reports that most of the haul road is completely devoid of AM and FM.

 

[Icangelp]

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.

Thread hijack in progress.
While in Big Bend years ago, we took a small wooden boat to a Mexican village right across the Rio Bravo and had a cerveza or two and some great mexican food. No customs, no lines, just some very nice folks in need of our dollars. Wish I could remember the town name.

 

[Gregg.]

When I was at the Grand Canyon, there were few stations AM or FM, although the dial was not totally empty. According to Radio-Locator, there's only a simulcast of No. Az. University's NPR station and a Traveler Information station locally:

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/lo...b=Y&format=&dx=0&radius=&freq=&sort=freq&sid=

I do remember being able to pick up a Class A Oldies station from Page AZ, 93.3 WXAZ, and a Class C Country station from Utah, although I forget what that was. In the day, there were no local AMs, just a few distant ones. Of course, at night, far from any man-made interference, you could DX stations from around the West. KFI, KNX, KGO, KNBR, KCBS, KBOI, KOA, KDWN, they were all there.

 

[icybluelake]

I traveled around that part of western Texas a few years ago. I'd agree about the Van Horn area, and I think I remember that when I drove to Guadalupe Peak and on to Carlsbad Caverns there was very little on AM radio, and the signal from KCKN 1020 in Roswell, NM, was poor -- probably the most powerful signal in that region. El Paso stations didn't seem to make it out there. I thought that overall it seemed like an area of really poor ground conductivity. Checking the famous FCC ground conductivity map, it's listed as mediocre but not awful. But the distances out there are huge and it's certainly sparsely populated, maybe making the ground conductivity seem worse than it is.

I'd echo what others have said about Big Bend. Little or nothing to hear on the AM band as I recall.

 

[icybluelake]

Oops, I noticed that this thread is about FM radio, and I posted mainly about AM. I don't remember there being much on FM in that area either, but nevertheless, my apologies.

 

[crainbebo]

Some parts of SR-20, east of Ross Lake and Newhalem are no-FM zones I see. Not until Winthrop and their small 106.3 (KCSY) and KTRT 97.5 The Root.

-crainbebo

 

[icybluelake]

Maybe some parts of central Nevada -- I was trying to remember when I drove through there several years ago whether there was a complete absence of FM signals. Around Austin, right near the middle of the state, is where I was wondering about. There might have been some traces of signals from Reno, but I don't remember. I googled Austin, NV radio reception, and I found this from radio-locator.com, which isn't hard evidence of anything, but I thought it was kind of funny.
It purports to show "vacant frequencies" and indicates that they're all vacant.
http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/vacant?select=city&city=89310

 

[ftballfan]

I would guess Isle Royale National Park is quite empty on AM and FM

 

[crainbebo]

Oh, I don't know about that. Duluth MN, Thunder Bay ON and UP Michigan probably possible from that area, especially in Tropo enhancement.

-crainbebo

 

[ftballfan]

Oh, I don't know about that. Duluth MN, Thunder Bay ON and UP Michigan probably possible from that area, especially in Tropo enhancement.

-crainbebo

Didn't realize Isle Royale is 30 miles from Thunder Bay. Then again, Thunder Bay is one of the most underserved radio markets in North America

 

[RadioDaze]

Last October, I drove from Durham, NC to Albuquerque, NM for a wedding, and the portion of Interstate 40 in eastern New Mexico from roughly east of Tucumcari to Santa Rosa is a very vacant stretch for FM. Aside from KQAY in Tucumcari, I wasn't able to get much of anything.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Last October, I drove from Durham, NC to Albuquerque, NM for a wedding, and the portion of Interstate 40 in eastern New Mexico from roughly east of Tucumcari to Santa Rosa is a very vacant stretch for FM. Aside from KQAY in Tucumcari, I wasn't able to get much of anything.

Last time I made that drive, the Lubbock FM stations were coming in very well. I also had skip from Branson, Missouri that day, listened for almost 100 miles.