I look at the clock and somehow it's Five O'Goddamned'Clock in the
morning. Well, at least I've (finally) made good progress on the intro
to linux doc, after about a year of false starts. Thunderbirds are go,
etc., etc.
Much earlier tonight, on my way home from the grocery store, the
Catalina's radio was picking up WTAM 1100 out of Cleveland. Apparently
it snowed rather a lot up there yesterday, which put q damper on some
sort of Support-the-Troops rally in Public Square. I can deal with
talking to people halfway around the world in real-time, and do it all
day long, but hearing a Weather report from Ohio on my car radio
blows my freakin' mind.
Isn't nighttime AM radio cool?
davebaker on 2005-04-25T13:39:01
I still remember leaping from my bed as a fifth-grader when I picked up WCKY in Cincinnati from my house in central Florida
... I was sneaking a radio with an earphone into bed to listen to the ball games on a local station. My mom and I got out a map of the country and determined how far it was from Florida to Cincinnati.
I later became a short-wave listener and then a ham radio operator. It's magic
... signals pulled right out of the "ether"
...
The FCC has reserved certain frequencies in the AM band as being "clear channels." Stations assigned to those frequencies are allowed to run the maximum legal limit (50,000 watts, I think) and don't have any other stations assigned to the same frequency (at least not in the same part of the country). So it's not hard to get a decent signal from them at night, depending on where you are in the country; WBT in Charlotte (1110 kHz) is easy to pick up pretty much anywhere on the east coast, I think. WSM in Nashville (650 kHz) still broadcasts the live "Grand Ole Opry" in the evenings. There are quite a few more. Explore!
Re:Isn't nighttime AM radio cool?
lachoy on 2005-04-25T16:20:59
There was a fascinating piece last week on Fresh Air about Mexican radio stations setup during the 30s that blasted with 500,000+ watts and could be heard all over the country. (Some could be heard all over the world.) He said some people could pickup the signal on chainlink fences, dental fillings, etc.
I was also suprised to hear that's where Wolfman Jack got started.
