Most of the time in summer, if you hear distant FM stations in New England, they're coming from the south... NYC, even Philadelphia or Baltimore.
But Sunday night as I was driving from the Boston area to the NY area, I was able to keep listening to 89.7 WGBH-FM Boston till I was nearly into Westchester County. WGBH-FM is NPR Talk by day and Jazz at night. It has the strongest FM signal in Boston, grandfathered at nearly 100,000 watts on a 650 foot tower. (In the Northeast, the max these days is 50,000 watts on a 500 foot tower.) So you usually can keep listening to WGBH-FM as you travel along I-84 till about 30 or 40 miles from Hartford. Most of the other Boston FMs lose their signal about 15 or 20 miles after crossing into Connecticut.
On Sunday night, I was amazed that I could hear WGBH-FM well past Hartford and even down the Merritt Parkway, past New Haven, Bridgeport, even Stamford. By the time I was in Greenwich, last town before the NY-CT border, I was still getting WGBH-FM but it was getting drowned out by 89.9 WKCR (Columbia Univ.) and 89.5 WSOU (Seton Hall Univ.).
I was also able to listen to WJJF 94.9, a talk station on the far tip of Long Island in Montauk, with only a 5600 watt signal. I heard WJJF with the syndicated Science Fantastic scientific talk show, also into Greenwich CT, about 100 miles away. Several Hartford area FMs were also coming in as I drove along the Merritt Parkway around Stamford and Norwalk, much further south than they usually travel.
Very odd that I was hearing distant FM stations to the north and east rather than from the south.
Gregg
[email protected]
But Sunday night as I was driving from the Boston area to the NY area, I was able to keep listening to 89.7 WGBH-FM Boston till I was nearly into Westchester County. WGBH-FM is NPR Talk by day and Jazz at night. It has the strongest FM signal in Boston, grandfathered at nearly 100,000 watts on a 650 foot tower. (In the Northeast, the max these days is 50,000 watts on a 500 foot tower.) So you usually can keep listening to WGBH-FM as you travel along I-84 till about 30 or 40 miles from Hartford. Most of the other Boston FMs lose their signal about 15 or 20 miles after crossing into Connecticut.
On Sunday night, I was amazed that I could hear WGBH-FM well past Hartford and even down the Merritt Parkway, past New Haven, Bridgeport, even Stamford. By the time I was in Greenwich, last town before the NY-CT border, I was still getting WGBH-FM but it was getting drowned out by 89.9 WKCR (Columbia Univ.) and 89.5 WSOU (Seton Hall Univ.).
I was also able to listen to WJJF 94.9, a talk station on the far tip of Long Island in Montauk, with only a 5600 watt signal. I heard WJJF with the syndicated Science Fantastic scientific talk show, also into Greenwich CT, about 100 miles away. Several Hartford area FMs were also coming in as I drove along the Merritt Parkway around Stamford and Norwalk, much further south than they usually travel.
Very odd that I was hearing distant FM stations to the north and east rather than from the south.
Gregg
[email protected]