The areas between NYC/Philly

[JH_Radio]

So having never really been in an area to try this with a radio, what happens in areas like Toms River, Princeton and Freehold?
Do both NYC and Philly come in very weak with lots of fading on car radios and home use (unless you have an outdoor antenna) is a nonstarter?


I'm very curious!
Prinsten

 

[TheBigA]

It depends on the station. All radio stations aren't equal. Some NYC stations can be heard in Monmouth County or Ocean County, and some can't. Some Philly stations come in very well in Wildwood and Atlantic City, and some don't. Plus all of those towns you mentioned have their own local stations. So the small local stations compete against the big NY and Philly stations. Even NJ101.5 does that battle every day. If you look at the ratings books for those areas, you'll see big city stations competing with local stations in Monmouth County, Middlesex/Somerset County, Atlantic City, Trenton, and Morristown.

 

[JH_Radio]

It depends on the station. All radio stations aren't equal.

Does it depend on the car too?
Like in Princeton or Toms River, Radio-locator would suggest that stations would come in from both but neither of them strong.
It actually sounds like both would be great places to DX from!

 

[davideduardo]

Does it depend on the car too?
Like in Princeton or Toms River, Radio-locator would suggest that stations would come in from both but neither of them strong.
It actually sounds like both would be great places to DX from!

Only the innermost red contour on Radio-Locator is where broad, useful reception can be encountered.

 

[luperm]

Terrain and weather can also come into play. Local suburban stations and translators/LPFMs can also impact reception of distant stations. It’s an interesting area.

 

[JH_Radio]

Only the innermost red contour on Radio-Locator is where broad, useful reception can be encountered.

So since I'm blind I can't see that.
There are however signal strength with 1 to 5 that I can read with 5 being very strong and 1 being very weak.
So like in a car those areas both would be fading in and out and not in stereo?
Those are areas where if you have a rooftop antenna and could rotate it you could get both depending on the direction and depending on how good your tuner is for nulling out adjacent channels?

 

[kevtronics]

Here is an FM bandscan on a car radio in Toms River:

 

[JH_Radio]

Here is an FM bandscan on a car radio in Toms River:

lol, is it sad that I was able to ID some of that just by the music format and knowing where you started?

The ones that were faint sound like if you turned the car in a different direction you'd pull those in.

 

[JH_Radio]

How many of them come in stereo? Is it mostly analog reception not HD? Is there lots of fading in the car? I'm talking in particular about the NYC/Philly/DE stations.

 

[Xale57]

Driving around all three of these areas. In Toms River, both NYC and Philly stations are weak and aren't listenable driving. 101.1 WBEB seems to top WCBS between the battle. 100.3 is mostly hash due to 100.1 JRZ in Seaside Heights and Route 37. You can start to pull in Z100 as you go North towards Brick. I remember WRNB and WHTZ with the same strength outside the Lakehurst Diner, years ago. I'm not sure where WRNB starts to come in going west from the parkway. 97.5 WPEN and 106.1 WISX are beaten up by the Long Island stations in the Summer months.

In Princeton, Philly and NYC stations all come in, besides WKTU under local WPRB's hash. 100.3 and 101.1 are equal strength between both cities.

Freehold, NYC stations have the edge. NYC is about 40 miles away while Roxborough (where most Philly stations transmit from) is around 52 miles. Philly stations are there but have hash interference from the adjacent NY signals. I found Q102.1 to be the clearest signal out of Philly driving through nearby Manalapan because WFAN has no HD sidebands. I had 96.5 WTDY steady driving on Route 33 east through Howell/Farmingdale, a few Summers ago. As for 100.3 vs 101.1. Z100 was pretty consistent driving Route 9 to 33. WCBS was dominant and had occasional blurts of WBEB cutting in.

 

[JH_Radio]

Sounds to me like Toms River or Brick would be a great area for DX, especially if I could get WALK and WBLI and WISX along with WHTZ and CBS and BEB and the other NYC/Philly/South Jersy stations. I'd just have to put an antenna up for it. Cool cool cool!

 

[AMRocks]

When 96.5 was WWDB years ago, and talk, they were in mono and BOOMED into Toms River.

 

[MVB13]

Why were WJRZ and WJLK allowed to be on those frequencies 100.1 WJRZ and 94.3 WJLK when they are so close to WHTZ 100.3 and WRNB 100.3 and 94.5 WPST 94.7 WNSH?

 

[kevtronics]

WJRZ and WJLK are lower-power Class A suburban stations (limited to a maximum power of 6 kW), while all the others you mention are full-power Class B city stations (max power 50 kW).

 

[Xale57]

Sounds to me like Toms River or Brick would be a great area for DX, especially if I could get WALK and WBLI and WISX along with WHTZ and CBS and BEB and the other NYC/Philly/South Jersy stations. I'd just have to put an antenna up for it. Cool cool cool

The areas around Fort Dix. ex. Wrightstown, Plumsted, Upper Freehold, Manchester, etc seem like the perfect areas to receive Allentown, Wilmington, Atlantic City, NYC, Philly, Trenton, Monmouth/Ocean, etc any market city within 65-70 miles. This is under normal conditions.

 

[TheBigA]

The areas around Fort Dix. ex. Wrightstown, Plumsted, Upper Freehold, Manchester, etc seem like the perfect areas to receive Allentown, Wilmington, Atlantic City, NYC, Philly, Trenton, Monmouth/Ocean, etc any market city within 65-70 miles. This is under normal conditions.

I don't know about Atlantic City. It's about an hour or more away. Same with Wilmington and Allentown.

 

[Xale57]

I don't know about Atlantic City. It's about an hour or more away. Same with Wilmington and Allentown.

Atlantic City stations are definitely there. Only 40-50 air miles. I find stations from Philly, NYC, Allentown, Trenton with no help of hills have a 65-70 air mile range and anything above comes in and out from a passing aircraft.

 

[kevtronics]

During summer tropo conditions, signals from the Jersey Shore and Delmarva boom into central NJ loud and clear, often drowning out local stations. Signals from Long Island often come in strong, too.

Here's a sample of a particularly good night of FM DXing in NJ:

 

[Radi0411]

<<< During summer tropo conditions, signals from the Jersey Shore and Delmarva boom into central NJ loud and clear, often drowning out local stations. Signals from Long Island often come in strong, too. >>>

Yeah those coastal stations from the South, some Full 100kw Class C's, literally blast up the coast for a good portion of the summer, sometimes as noted, completely blowing off Class A's and B1's. Quite amazing. Regularly you can hear "Q105" from Salisbury (WQHQ) super strong as well as WZXL blasting through most of NJ along with WAYV. WELJ (when not competing with WQHQ for temporary spectrum) and WBAB are often decent catches from Long Island too as you noted.

 

[nd2023]

I have an APS-13 antenna near Atlantic City. I am able to pick up NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC, and Norfolk all the time. Philly is in HD all the time, the other markets come in HD with a little tropo. Cape Cod and the Outer Banks comes in with tropo many nights. I seem to hit a wall at I-81 though, haven’t gotten stations west of I-81.