RadioBanter - View Single Post

May 30th 06, 03:21 PM posted to rec.radio.shortwave

"Stephanie Weil" wrote in message
ups.com...

wrote:
There ARE
people who live in rural areas where there is no FM service. Really,
I've been there. AM is all they got, so they DX all the time, not as a
hobby. IBOC is intentional QRM.

Yup. I was in such an area this weekend. Schoharie County (Howe Caves,
Cobleskill, that area) in northern New York. There are a couple of FM
stations - all music (plus a couple religoius) formats. No news on
those. You get some bits and pieces of Fly 92 and WGNA-FM from the
Capital District.

As far as AM, there's a couple local daytimers - the big one being
WSDE-1190 (a local full-service station) and then there's WGY AM 81 out
of Schenectady. All WGY does as far as information is a few seconds of
Fox News Radio at the top of the hour and some Capital District news
done locally. Most of that thing is network-delivered talk, though:
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Phil Hendrie, Mike Savage, etc.

At night, the sundowners (WSDE among them) dump carrier and go off the
air; and the dial comes alive. If you want news on the radio you can
catch WCBS-88 and WINS-1010 and WBBR-1130 from New York City solid.

You pretty much have no choice but to listen to long distance radio in
the rural areas.

I had forgotten what it was like - I used to love listening in to
long-distance radio as a teenager. It's going to be a disaster when
the whole dial is covered by buzzing hash, though.

The issue, though, is double. Is the content from Manhattan of any interest?
And, more than that, you have to wait till night time. Hardly anyone listens
to any radio at night (less than a third of daytime levels) and even less to
AM. hose signals may be available, but not used as there is no demand.