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Anyone ever mess around with an AM radio at night?

Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
I was always told that late at night you can pickup US stations if you play with the AM tuner late at night. This has to do with some phenomenon with the ionosphere where waves can bounce better at night. It had never occurred to me to try it till last night. I'm guessing the clearer ones were probably not that far away but one of them I'm pretty sure was from Ohio, but it was very unclear so I may have heard wrong. I also heard lot of US politics on radio talk shows so a lot of these were most likely from the US. The clearer ones were most likely here in Canada. I think I did pickup a Toronto station which is still a ways off.

I thought it was kinda interesting to try. Has anyone else ever tried this? Just need a standard radio. I'd imagine a good antenna makes things even better.
 
It's called skip by the amateur radio operators and SWL (shortwave listeners). Pick up a shortwave receiver! There's a lot of stuff out there.
I also spent countless hours tuned in to no broadcast whatsoever on humid nights listening to lightning sometimes thousands of miles away. That's known as sferics. 🙂
 
There was a time when Clear Channel meant AM Broadcast Stations rather than boring and repetitive radio programming. There's a list of clear channel stations here.

Back in the '60s and early '70s, KAAY in Little Rock was a late night favorite throughout the American South and Midwest with its "Beaker Street" program.
 
Not lately, but in 1980-81, we lived about 70 miles from the closest town in eastern Nevada. The ONLY radio stations we could get were on the skip. Most of the time, I got stations from Oklahoma clearer than anything else.
 
Back in the 70's my family lived in Syracuse, N.Y. My father (from Springfield, Mass) would listen to Red Sox games broadcast on WBZ Boston out in the driveway. In his car.
 
Rubycon said:
It's called skip by the amateur radio operators and SWL (shortwave listeners). Pick up a shortwave receiver! There's a lot of stuff out there.
I also spent countless hours tuned in to no broadcast whatsoever on humid nights listening to lightning sometimes thousands of miles away. That's known as sferics. 🙂
Click to expand...

I know you are smart because I learn something new in most of your posts.
 
alkemyst said:
I don't count a Camel you are sucking off as my 'antenna'.

Nice way to be alpha though. Call You Joe? no.

that's the Camel's name.
Click to expand...
camel.jpg



I'm guessing this is even shorter than your antenna...
 
Red Squirrel said:
I was always told that late at night you can pickup US stations if you play with the AM tuner late at night. This has to do with some phenomenon with the ionosphere where waves can bounce better at night. It had never occurred to me to try it till last night. I'm guessing the clearer ones were probably not that far away but one of them I'm pretty sure was from Ohio, but it was very unclear so I may have heard wrong. I also heard lot of US politics on radio talk shows so a lot of these were most likely from the US. The clearer ones were most likely here in Canada. I think I did pickup a Toronto station which is still a ways off.

I thought it was kinda interesting to try. Has anyone else ever tried this? Just need a standard radio. I'd imagine a good antenna makes things even better.
Click to expand...

I miss the clear channel days. Could pick up practically every state east of the Mississippi at night in suburban Philadelphia. Out of town baseball games were always fun in the summer.

Good choices for this that don't require anything elaborate for an antenna include the G.E. Superadio II and the Panasonic RF-2200. The latter has a rotatable loopstick that nulls directionally, which helps with digging the weaker ones out. The Superadios have really nice audio, with two-way speakers and separate bass and treble controls.
 
Camels have high VSWR and you NEVER stand in front of them unless you like tennis ball sized lugi getting hurled at your backside at camelsneeze speed... D:
 
Red Squirrel said:
I was always told that late at night you can pickup US stations if you play with the AM tuner late at night. This has to do with some phenomenon with the ionosphere where waves can bounce better at night. It had never occurred to me to try it till last night. I'm guessing the clearer ones were probably not that far away but one of them I'm pretty sure was from Ohio, but it was very unclear so I may have heard wrong. I also heard lot of US politics on radio talk shows so a lot of these were most likely from the US. The clearer ones were most likely here in Canada. I think I did pickup a Toronto station which is still a ways off.

I thought it was kinda interesting to try. Has anyone else ever tried this? Just need a standard radio. I'd imagine a good antenna makes things even better.
Click to expand...

I can pick up US stations during the day. :hmm:
 
When I was prospecting in northern Quebec during the late seventies, sometimes at night we'd get Spanish-speaking AM stations with a pretty clear signal. We thought it was from some place in Mexico.
 
You can get WBZ (Boston, AM 1030) in New Orleans via AM skip. My parents found it very entertaining to get it when they were vacationing down there last year.
 
One night in fraiser colorado at about ,9000 feet I picked up a station out of hawaii. -5 outside and they are sayimg it was a perfect 72 degrees.
 
Ha, picked up Toronto again, and I did indeed get Coast to Coast. Though from what I've googled there are many stations for that one so not sure where I got it from.

I recall when we had an AM country station and my grandpa always listened to it in the motorhome, jeep or even outside the motorhome, when camping. It was always interesting when there was a thunderstorm as you can indeed hear a static bump when there's lightning that hits.
 
I think the stations on the left of the dial travel farther at night than the ones on the right. Best I ever got was a station from Regina, Saskatchewan that I was listening to in Davis, CA. That's a pretty fair distance.
 
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