kb0nes
Well-known member
I am an AM BCB DX'er and I frequently tune through the band to judge propagation. As an amateur radio operator who is very active on the 160m band (1.800-2.000Mhz), AM broadcast is a good prediction of what conditions are like.
On most any night, although better in the winter due to storm related noise, many of the stations that maintain omnidirectional patterns and high power after dark can be heard most places in the US. A few stations to look for
WSM 650 Nashville
WLW 700 Cincinnati
WGN 720 Chicago
WCCO 830 Minneapolis
KDKA 1020 Pittsburg
There are others also but I scan these almost nightly. These used to be called Clear Channel stations but those really don't exist any longer.
If you wish to know details about any AM broadcast station use the FCC AM Query page. There you can learn details of the stations location, their daytime and nightime power levels and their directional patterns if they run one. Reducing power or running a different night time pattern is done to reduce interference to other stations that share the frequency.
https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/am-query
The reason that stations can be heard after dark is that once the Sun sets the lowest layer of the ionosphere (the D layer) loses its daytime ionization. During the day this layer effectively acts like a sponge and it absorbs all the low frequency RF so the higher layers don't refract it back to Earth. After the D layer collapses then single and multi hop propagation is possible.
Note I really only listen to AM broadcast for the magic of radio. Most all the program material is cringeworthy at best...
A fun story from a number of years ago. My mother walked into the room one even when I was listening to KDKA in Pisttsburg. The station ID'ed just than with their call and location and mom stopped mid sentence like she saw a ghost. She wanted to know how I was hearing that. She mentioned that as a girl she used to sit by her father during the war and they listened to KDKA from their home in rural Pennsylvania. She was amazed the station still existed. Even more amazed when I told her that KDKA was essentially the first commercial broadcast station ever!
tl:dr Yes I am a fan of listening to AM
On most any night, although better in the winter due to storm related noise, many of the stations that maintain omnidirectional patterns and high power after dark can be heard most places in the US. A few stations to look for
WSM 650 Nashville
WLW 700 Cincinnati
WGN 720 Chicago
WCCO 830 Minneapolis
KDKA 1020 Pittsburg
There are others also but I scan these almost nightly. These used to be called Clear Channel stations but those really don't exist any longer.
If you wish to know details about any AM broadcast station use the FCC AM Query page. There you can learn details of the stations location, their daytime and nightime power levels and their directional patterns if they run one. Reducing power or running a different night time pattern is done to reduce interference to other stations that share the frequency.
https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/am-query
The reason that stations can be heard after dark is that once the Sun sets the lowest layer of the ionosphere (the D layer) loses its daytime ionization. During the day this layer effectively acts like a sponge and it absorbs all the low frequency RF so the higher layers don't refract it back to Earth. After the D layer collapses then single and multi hop propagation is possible.
Note I really only listen to AM broadcast for the magic of radio. Most all the program material is cringeworthy at best...
A fun story from a number of years ago. My mother walked into the room one even when I was listening to KDKA in Pisttsburg. The station ID'ed just than with their call and location and mom stopped mid sentence like she saw a ghost. She wanted to know how I was hearing that. She mentioned that as a girl she used to sit by her father during the war and they listened to KDKA from their home in rural Pennsylvania. She was amazed the station still existed. Even more amazed when I told her that KDKA was essentially the first commercial broadcast station ever!
tl:dr Yes I am a fan of listening to AM