NY Radio Station in Charlotte? 880 AM (Washington: houses, college, live)
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Kinda weird, but I'm able to hear 880AM which is airing WCBS from NY. A Yankee game is currently on. Is this always the case, or is the signal just really strong tonight? Anyone else able to tune in the Yankee game right now?
It depends on atmospheric conditions. What you're hearing is the real signal but it's been bounced between the earth and the atmosphere a few times before landing on your antenna. Consider yourself lucky (well, take that with a grain of salt--afterall, it's a Yankees game!)...a few tens maybe 100 miles further away and you'd be missing out since the signal would be bouncing up away from you toward the atmosphere again. It keeps doing this until it basically loses all of its energy and fizzles out.
There's a name for this (reflection, maybe) that the physics and radio types use. I can't remember. I used to listen to a Washington, DC station in my home as a kid in Orlando, FL. You can only do this with AM stations too. FM stations fizzle out much quicker. It has to do with the way the signal is broadcast: Amplitude Modulation (height of the signal wave) versus Frequency Modulation (how many times the wave hits per second). Basically, FM uses up all its gas much quicker than the slow and lumbering (but powerful) AM signal. Think of it as each wave cycle bleeds off some energy. The more waves you make, the less energy you'll have.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bmints
Kinda weird, but I'm able to hear 880AM which is airing WCBS from NY. A Yankee game is currently on. Is this always the case, or is the signal just really strong tonight? Anyone else able to tune in the Yankee game right now?
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,688,469 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by Metallisteve
It depends on atmospheric conditions. What you're hearing is the real signal but it's been bounced between the earth and the atmosphere a few times before landing on your antenna. Consider yourself lucky (well, take that with a grain of salt--afterall, it's a Yankees game!)...a few tens maybe 100 miles further away and you'd be missing out since the signal would be bouncing up away from you toward the atmosphere again. It keeps doing this until it basically loses all of its energy and fizzles out.
There's a name for this (reflection, maybe) that the physics and radio types use. I can't remember. I used to listen to a Washington, DC station in my home as a kid in Orlando, FL. You can only do this with AM stations too. FM stations fizzle out much quicker. It has to do with the way the signal is broadcast: Amplitude Modulation (height of the signal wave) versus Frequency Modulation (how many times the wave hits per second). Basically, FM uses up all its gas much quicker than the slow and lumbering (but powerful) AM signal. Think of it as each wave cycle bleeds off some energy. The more waves you make, the less energy you'll have.
This is true, however WCBS is a clear channel (not the company) station.
I know I can always "listen live" thru their website or listen to a Yankee game on my XM radio (in my car)... but, what a crazy thing that these AM radio signals can go that far.
I know I can always "listen live" thru their website or listen to a Yankee game on my XM radio (in my car)... but, what a crazy thing that these AM radio signals can go that far.
Thanks!
YW
The clear channel designation goes Waaaaaaay back. Reception from afar can depend on weather & all kinds of things, but just as an example, I once listened to 1060, KYW, in Philly while driving in Arizona.
AM Stations can go on alot further than a normal FM radio station. My great-grandma has a floor model radio/phonograph, from the 1940's, and on the dial it has many far-off places on the dial. It has the standard AM range in numbers, and then every so often there will be a city name under the dial number like "Paris" "London" "San Francisco" "New York" "Washington, DC" "Rome", so apparently back in the day, you could use an AM Radio station and pick up stations on the other side of the planet. Interesting.
Being from NJ originally, I used to wake up every morning to WCBS 88.0 "Traffic and Weather" together on the 8's...At times, like you guys indicated depending on atmospheric conditions I'll pick up 88.0 WCBS and 66.0 WFAN. The signal only lasts about 15 minutes, then it drifts away. I do livestream both stations. Kathy, that's amazing you picked up 1060 all the way in Arizona, must have been a clear winter night?
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