[78-L] Radio blues

[Royal Pemberton]

Back in the late 1980s I lived in Keokuk, Iowa, and with a somewhat
Frankensteined Wilcox-Gay Recordette III machine's AM radio section would
pick up 740 in late evenings 'on the skip'.  Thus I heard 'Nightcamp' and
such.  One problem with that was KTRH, another 50 kw flamethrower, from
Houston, that would sometimes swamp the signal from Canada.

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 4:46 PM, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>wrote:

> I used to listen to WQXR while driving home from Oshawa late at night in
> the
> 70s. Sometimes I could pick up WCFL in Chicago. As for CBL's coverage,
> Vince
> Giordano used to listen to my late night programs at his home in Brooklyn,
> and
> he sent me a few albums..this is how I made his acquaintance. (I once had a
> phone message from someone at NBC in Chicago, as well, and I thought maybe
> they
> were going to lay down the law on my running vintage radio material.
> 'Twasn't
> the case.)
>
> dl
>
> On 9/26/2010 11:38 AM, DAVID BURNHAM wrote:
> > WQXR went up the dial to 1560FM,  a 3 candlepower station which does not
> > reach my location a mere 25 miles from NYC ...
> >
> > Al Simmons
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > I'm rarely in NYC but surely you mean 1560AM.
> >
> > 740 AM did reach a huge area - I was once heading along the south shore
> of Lake
> > Superior from Sault Ste. Marie and I was able to listen to CBC 740, (this
> was in
> > the mid 60s).  I was surprised last year when, while driving between
> Alabama and
> > Mississippi I was able to listen to CFRB.  On the other hand, quite often
> in
> > much closer Parry Sound at night, WINZ in New York City, (which has the
> same
> > frequency as CFRB), obliterates the signal from CFRB.
> >
> > CBC obviously opted to convert Radio 1 in the Toronto area, (and other
> areas),
> > from AM to FM because of the improved audio quality.  When they first did
> it,
> > they were broadcasting in Stereo since a number of Radio 2 music shows,
> (Mostly
> > Music, Clyde Gilmour, Rick Philips etc.), were repeated on Radio 1.
>  However one
> > of the mis-guided VPs determined that stereo broadcasts don't have the
> same
> > coverage as mono broadcasts so the Stereo was dropped.  I tried to have
> him
> > re-think that reasoning since while I was travelling home from Kitchener
> one
> > night, I had no problem picking up Radio 2 in Stereo but couldn't get
> Radio 1 in
> > mono at all.  I think what happens is that when the signal gets weak, the
> stereo
> > sub-carrier is lost and the sound reverts to mono.
> >
> > But someone, I think it was Mr. Barr, mentioned that FM signals have a
> coverage
> > of 100 miles, (160 kms);  I think that's rather generous.  FM signals
> travel
> > straight, like line of sight, so once you've gone about 50 miles, the
> curvature
> > of the earth masks the signal, (of course cable companies can build large
> towers
> > in high altitude locations to nab some of the space-bound signal).  In
> southern
> > Ontario, if you're driving up the 400, Toronto FM stations abruptly get
> garbled
> > shortly after you pass Barrie.
> >
> > db
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