Skyscraper FM Reception

[david]

Orange CA: Skyscraper FM Reception

A couple years ago I worked on the 10th floor of a building at the Block in Orange, California. One side of the building had reliable reception of San Diego FMs mostly, while the other half of the building could pick up Los Angeles FMs. On a clear day you could actually see downtown LA off in the distance (some 30 miles away), whereas SD is about 90 miles away from that spot. Both sides can pick up Class A 94.3 whose transmitter sits atop another high-rise in the same center. At the time 94.3 was a locally owned really good edgy alternative that tried to find lots of new independent bands. Unfortunately, the signal has since been sold and is now useless as it was flipped to a Spanish simulcast of another Class A, LA's 105.5.

 

[tomservo]

Anyone care to speculate?

If you have a decent car radio, I'd say go for it! All the major TV stations and many class C FM's are located on Red Mountain in downtown Birmingham, but I never had trouble getting Montgomery, Atlanta and Huntsville while right under their sticks. Of course, first-adjacents were completely covered... ;D

In fact, even with a portable radio you should still see some improvements, although the taller surrounding buildings may pose a blockage issue on really weak signals.

 

[TheRob]

I still remember the top floor of Watson Library at the University of Kansas, on the south-facing side. Even in the winter, I could log Dodge City, Tulsa and Fayetteville on my walkman.

 

[BRNout]

I just did it on Pike's Peak last summer - 8000 feet above the surrounding terrain. Nothing over 200 miles. A very good car radio, too.

Yep, that was my experience too - some 15 years ago. Farthest signals were from Wyoming. Tried for Grand Junction and stations from northern NM, but to no avail.

I'm sure it's even worse now, with additional locals on the air in the Denver and CS markets. Still, it is pretty interesting for us geeks! Did you try the donuts?

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I just did it on Pike's Peak last summer - 8000 feet above the surrounding terrain. Nothing over 200 miles. A very good car radio, too.

Yep, that was my experience too - some 15 years ago. Farthest signals were from Wyoming. Tried for Grand Junction and stations from northern NM, but to no avail.

I'm sure it's even worse now, with additional locals on the air in the Denver and CS markets. Still, it is pretty interesting for us geeks! Did you try the donuts?

Donuts were great. I got a Cheyenne - MAYBE a Casper (it never ID'd). The wife was totally against me listening to the radio. We spent about 3 hours, then went down. I'd love to go again with the latest version of Pioneer Supertuner with adaptive IF bandwidth technology.

 

[Buckeyes2001]

Not exactly a skyscraper but my first year at The Ohio State University, I lived on the 12th floor of an apartment building on Lane Ave facing north. One day I had WCPZ 102.7/Sandusky, OH coming in and out. On the ground on a car radio, 102.7 was mostly WEBN/Cincinnati if anything. I could also get 101.3 WNCO from Ashland pretty well when I nulled what was then WWCD 101.1 interference. I also had a color TV with rabbit ears and one day I was getting WNWO 24 from Toledo and Detroit's channel 50. WTVG 13 showed up a couple of times from there too.

 

[K6JHU]

"The biggest thing I've been able to find here in Youbetchaland is the Mall of America ramp, which is maybe 60 feet high."

You can get up to the top of the Foshay tower in downtown Minneapolis. Don't know what the tall buildings around will do to you.

 

[schmave]

My freshman year of college (1996-97), I lived on the 15th floor of Parks Tower at the University of Toledo. For the first half of the year, my dorm room faced north, in the general direction of Detroit. I picked up all the Detroit FM stations like locals, except for 89X (88.7/CIMX), and that's only because the transmitter of our campus radio station, WXUT (88.3), was on Parks' roof not far above me. That station was and is only 100 watts, but it was enough to cause problems for 89X within a mile or two of campus.
Detroit TV was less dependable. 20, 50 and 62 came in somewhat well (20 and 62 weren't available on our cable), and sometimes I got Fox 2.
In the middle of the year, I moved to a south-facing dorm room. There, it wasn't at all unusual for me to pick up Lima TV (70 miles southwest) if I had the antenna in. I don't remember getting anything from Fort Wayne, 100 miles southwest. As far as radio, Lima stations rarely made an appearance other than T102 (WIMT), which is 50K. The farthest south station I heard was the old WMRN on 106.9 from Marion, about 90 miles south-southeast toward Columbus.

 

[K6JHU]

Went to school at the far end of Long Island. The administration asked if we had any special requests for a dorm room. Put in 'top floor, facing west'. Got full limiting on FM's from New York City

 

[charlestondxman]

Several stories. One time I went to the observation deck at the Pru in Boston with a Walkman. It was a very cold winter afternoon. I was only up there a few minutes, but I could get every Providence TV and FM station clear, plus a TV on every channel. Portland was listenable on 6 and 13.

From the top floor of a condo on the ocean at I believe Redington Shores or the next town south during the summer this year with tropo it was crazy on FM. Panama City was audible all day every day, and Mobile was there several days. Jacksonville was in every night, and I got Dothan, Alabama and Montgomery too.

 

[kenglish]

OK,...now I'm intrigued.
I've never tried it with an FM radio, but here at KSL, you can't get a peep out of a TV signal on the top (eighth) floor, even though you can clearly see the transmitter towers out the window.
The glass is all a heavy, "energy efficient" type, though it's 1982 vintage.

I'll have to go up there and try it with a radio.
(BTW, we have OTA FM Radio in our in-house MATV system. And, it was a b***h finding a replacement for the amplifier/processor.
Wound up using a Tin Lee unit from Canada. Glad there's still a source.)

 

[DrC]

I stayed in the old Crowne Plaza hotel in Cleveland in late 2011 (just a month before it was closed and all its contents liquidated) on the 21st floor. Pretty great situation - I was facing north/northwest toward the lake and the Cle transmitter farm was on the other side of the building. With my Grundig shortwave, I pulled in almost every Detroit FM signal like a local. Depending on which way I turned the antenna, I got a full stereo signal on 88.7 Windsor or Cleveland's college station at 88.7.

Strangest of all, I tuned to 95.9, expecting to hear rock on FM96 out of London, Ontario (usually receivable at ground level along the lake in Cleveland due to their 300k watts across the lake)...and instead picked up the much lower-powered 95.9 CJWF out of Windsor. It made sense though, as the line-of-sight favored Windsor.

On the TV side, about ten years ago, I lived near Euclid (east suburb of Cleveland) on the eighth floor of a high rise, and again, was on the east side of the apartment building, facing away from the Cleveland antenna farm. Hooked a $19 Radio Shack UHF yagi to my balcony, pointed it at the lake, and I pulled in several of the Chatham area UHFs (CTV 42, TVO 59, CBC 64, Global 29) 100% of the time. There were a few others like Omni.1 (ch. 69) and CH (ch. 51) but they weren't as reliable. When I swung the antenna the other way, I received the Youngstown stations. 21 and 27 were like locals. 33 was slightly worse, but watchable. This 12-floor highrise used to have a monster of an antenna tower on top of it (formerly used to receive a now-defunct wireless cable service) and I used to go crazy imagining what I could pull in from Canada if I could attach an antenna to that thing...

 

[ScottBurns]

Went to school at the far end of Long Island. The administration asked if we had any special requests for a dorm room. Put in 'top floor, facing west'. Got full limiting on FM's from New York City

When you say the "far end" of Long Island, do you mean the Hamptons? If so, I'm curious to hear what you were able to pick up from there. Stations from the New London market are a no-brainer, I am sure. But what about stations from Providence or Cape Cod? How about coastal New Jersey stations?

 

[K6JHU]

Long island far before the band got cluttered. Best station coming in (and msot listened to) was WDRC-FM. Even better than the coastal Connecticut stations. Nothing heard further east than New Haven. Not many FM's on LI at the time. The two FM stations in Patchogue came in well but not worth listening to. I seem to remember an FM in Babylon and Hempstead. That's why I wanted NYC. Based on the above we can play 'guess the year' (way, way, back)

 

[charlestondxman]

Sorry to update it, but reception is really good on several local parking garages that are 5 or 6 levels. You can get Savannah stations frequently on the top level of a couple open parking decks in downtown Charleston.

 

[Andrew K]

I've had a few experiences with the topic of this thread...

1. Bringing a handheld TV up in the CN Tower in Toronto.
2. Staying on the 15th floor of a hotel in downtown Chicago next to the John Hancock Tower.
3. Staying on the 21st floor of a hotel in Niagara Falls.

First of all, the TV band was completely a mess in the CN tower. I don't even recall being able to receive the stations even broadcasting from that tower, but yet I remember receiving a few slightly distant channels from Kitchener. I wasn't at all impressed. In Chicago, staying next to the John Hancock Tower, I could only receive signals from that tower overloading my radio and TV... anything else, even from the Sears Tower was really hard to get anything listenable. The hotel in Niagara Falls wasn't bad, but still wasn't nearly what I expected. The view was facing east, so Rochester signals were coming in a bit.

From my experience, sometimes I wonder if it's even worth putting up a massive antenna tower on your house. The reception wouldn't seem to improve enough to justify it.

 

[ftballfan]

I haven't tried this, but I think I would be able to pull in WTCM and WLDR (Traverse City) from a north-facing window (facing away from WMUK and WFUR) in downtown Grand Rapids (especially Bridgewater Place or the Amway Grand).

I also think the top floor of the Grand Traverse Resort would lead to good results.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

From my experience, sometimes I wonder if it's even worth putting up a massive antenna tower on your house. The reception wouldn't seem to improve enough to justify it.

I think the problem in some of your locations was overload from nearby transmitters confusing the AGC circuitry in your receiver. I do know that even a 20 foot mast with a good yagi is enough to get over 300 mile reception on FM, I've done it for years. It is reliable enough to produce enjoyable music, which is what I am after - I'm not a pure DX'er in it for the game. It is simply a means to an end for me - the music.

When I was in college, I met a lot of DX'ers. That area of West Texas breeds them because the local stations are so bad. We heard stories of a TV DX'er south of Dallas who had a 150 foot tower with a rotor. He could get all 13 VHF channels, and by rotating the antenna different directions, he could get different TV stations on 12 of the channels. I never saw the installation, but he was using a Heathkit TV. This was in the early 70's, when a lot of people were motivated to do TV DX by football blackouts. I remember seeing articles on how to construct antennas cut to specific TV channels, and other articles on how to make TV boosters for a single channel. There were articles everywhere about people getting their games from 200 to 300 miles away. I actually cut a channel 2 dipole myself for a Super Bowl fan - cut to channel 2 - from Keystone Heights Florida to get the Orlando channel 2. Boosted it way up in a tree and presto - clear channel 2. Well - almost - the only problem he had was a lot of interference from the Atlanta channel 2. The superbowl party was a success, he soon realized it worked pretty well on every other VHF channel and left it up there for years until he moved.

 

[cefgw]

Long island far before the band got cluttered. Best station coming in (and msot listened to) was WDRC-FM. Even better than the coastal Connecticut stations. Nothing heard further east than New Haven. Not many FM's on LI at the time. The two FM stations in Patchogue came in well but not worth listening to. I seem to remember an FM in Babylon and Hempstead. That's why I wanted NYC. Based on the above we can play 'guess the year' (way, way, back)

Back in 1968-70, I lived in central CT and always got a Muzak station in Atlantic City. The band is way too crowded now. Fast forward to 1977, and WRCN Riverhead LI NY easily covered Bourne, MA. You can't beat salt water.

 

[charlestondxman]

FM reception on some of the tall buildings in Myrtle Beach is excellent. With a normal boom box FM radio on some of the tall buildings, you can get Charleston FMs very clearly (especially 96.9 and 101.7).

With a good radio, and some skip, the sky's the limit. Anything from Hampton Roads (or farther) to South Florida is possible.

There were a couple posters a few years back that said standards listeners would listen to WLOW out of Hilton Head, probably 150 miles away.