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| AM radio band + better nighttime signals = random stations on your radio that you wouldn't normally hear in your area. |
^ If you know where the above title is from, you win my approval.
If you read this blog with some level of regularity, then you'll know that I'm a longtime radio geek, and that I've worked for several radio stations, including 1650 AM Radio Shalom.
Ever since I was a kid, I've loved radio. I used to take my mini transistor radio to bed with me at night, hide it under the pillow, and when my parents left, I'd turn it on, plug in my headphones, and listen to my favourite stations before heading off to sleep.
When I got a relatively cheap stereo system as a Bar Mitzvah present, I started listening to the radio more and more. The coolest thing about this stereo system was that instead of having a knob for the tuner, it had up and down buttons, like an elevator. This made it much easier to switch stations.
Anyway, one evening, I was scanning through the AM band, and I started picking up more stations than usual. Many of them weren't even from the Montreal market. Intrigued, I kept doing it, because it was interesting to see what kinds of stations I could pick up. I later found out that if I moved the radio or its antenna in different directions, I could pick up even more stations.
Fast-forward to today. I've since learned that I was not alone in my interest in AM dial scanning, and that the art of picking up out-of-market radio stations is called DXing. DX is an abbreviation that comes from the days of the telegraph, and it is short for "distance" or "distant".
In recent days, I've been doing some late-night DXing. It's often better to do this at night, as the signals are often clearer at night. According to the Wikipedia article on AM band DXing, when the sun sets, AM stations whose signals are usually impeded by the D-layer of the ionosphere begin bouncing off the the F-layer instead, which makes for better reception of both stations in your broadcast area, and those from other places. I usually position my radio in front of my window so that the signals can beam in better.
The more hardcore DXers have special ways of logging what they find, and even have DX clubs and such. My logs are simple; they consist of a table I created in Microsoft Word that lists the frequency (kHz), the call sign, the location, and one-word review of the reception (Good, Fair, or Poor). Other DXers will log things like the amount of time listened, and what exactly they heard on each frequency.
DXing is fun because every experience is a new adventure. Below are some highlights of far-off stations that I've logged over the past few days:
-WTIC 1080 AM, Hartford, CT
-WWVA 1170 AM, Wheeling, WV
-WEEI 850 AM, Boston, MA
-CFTR 680 AM, Toronto, ON
-WJR 760 AM, Detroit, MI
-WVMT 620 AM, Burlington, VT
-WPRO 630 AM, Providence, RI
-WHJJ 920 AM, Providence, RI
-WBZ 1030 AM, Boston, MA
-WWMK 1260 AM, Cleveland, OH
-WYOS 1360 AM, Binghamton, NY
-WDRC 1360 AM, Hartford, CT
-CKPC 1380 AM, Brantford, ON
-KXEL 1540 AM, Waterloo, IA - The furthest station I've logged thus far.
-WNWR 1540 AM, Philadelphia, PA
The majority of these stations were all-news or news / talk formats; the AM dial is usually full of these. I usually listen to each station I find long enough to hear a station ID with a call sign and frequency, and then I plug that information into Google and Wikipedia to find out where the stations are from. Also, I always seem to pick up the same five or six legendary AM stations from New York City, such as WFAN 660, WABC 770, and WCBS-AM 880, among others.
