[tbill618]

Radio reception around here is pretty poor. Coming from the fairly flat midwest I figured that the mountains play havoc with the signals and I would have to get used to it. Driving from Henderson to Boulder City I experience some static with most FM signals, 97.1 is the worst cutting out before Railroad Pass.

A couple of weeks ago we drove up to the Valley of Fire taking the back way past Lake Mead on Lake Shore Drive. (It was a couple of days after the big rain and there was a really cool waterfall on the road to Overton just east of Lake Las Vegas.) On the way up we didn't have any problems with radio reception. Surrounded by mountains and no problem. Any ideas why?

[AA702]

It might help to get a better tuner with an aftermarket radio such as a Pioneer (with supertuner III or IV). I noticed it get better reception with my Pioneer over my stock head unit. A high gain aftermarket antenna also might help.

[tbill618]

Thanks. Does HD radio make much difference?

[AA702]

Originally Posted by tbill618

Thanks. Does HD radio make much difference?

I'm not sure but I know HD radio is actually a digital signal instead of analog. I would suspect you would also need a clear signal for it work properly. Being digital, it may not give you static but more of a bunch of pauses just like Siruis/XM does.

[MSchu]

analog is what you want... analog will search the areas between the tenth measurements for a signal.

oh by the way... amplitude modulation is MUCH STRONGER and will travel MUCH further than frequency modulation with out a boosted signal.

[Buzz123]

Originally Posted by MSchu

analog is what you want... analog will search the areas between the tenth measurements for a signal.

oh by the way... amplitude modulation is MUCH STRONGER and will travel MUCH further than frequency modulation with out a boosted signal.

Trying to remember here MSchu: doesn't AM follow the contours of the earth, and FM goes in a straight line? Or is it the other way around? Maybe it's the other way, thus in the old days we had lots of ghosting in the picture of off air signals, but audio was seldom affected except when video levels went too high and leaked over into the audio signal. TV audio is/was FM, and the video is/was AM, but now I'm not up on how digital and high def work. I know it takes a whole lot more power, thus much higher energy bills, to get an FM signal to reach as far as AM, and there is a limit as to how far. A 50,000 watt AM can cover half of the country, but for FM I believe you need twice that much power just to cover a city.

The other thing is that where there are no people there is no reason to cover it. Even though they are equipped with rabbit ears, Jack rabbits don't listen to radio, much less buy advertised products.

Anywho ...Boulder City has always had problems getting any kind of signals. They can't get local TV off the air in Boulder City I understand, so radio is probably a problem too. The transmitters are on this side of Black Mountain directed toward the Valley. Might be partly the fault of the power lines from Hoover Dam. The other thing might be that local radio signals may be mostly directional. You never could get local radio too far out of town, usually, except for those highway stations between here and LA.

Now that we have SiriusXM in our car we never listen to local stations.

[SoCalCpl2]

We can get 97.1 as we are traveling to Las Vegas from Los Angeles.. We start to receive it about Baker which is like 90 miles out..

Also we have never had any radio problems in Vegas..Everythign comes in clear.....

[swagger]

Dump the terrestrial radio and go with satellite. Last time I had to listen to terrestrial radio, there was more time spent on commercials than on content. I have no problem with stations paying the bills, but I'll gladly pay a few bucks per month to get a massive variety of content without commercials.

[lvoc]

Radio reception is quite strong in Las Vegas. You can get some shading if you get behind a mountain or in places blocked from the transmitters like BC.

AM has the capability of bending to the atmosphere. That is why all but clear channel stations have to cut their power at night. They have too much range. FM is pretty much line of sight.

On my Amateur equipment (If I ever get my antenna back up) I can work all of the way to the other side of the Pacific on some nights and to Hawaii or more most nights. That is with 100 watts of power. I don't add more power as that is as far as I can hear. That is using a version of AM at frequencies a bit above the AM broadcast bands.

I would also note that I get 65 or so TV channels over the air with a relatively simple elevated antenna. I think that much more challenging than AM or FM radio.

[Buzz123]

Originally Posted by lvoc

Radio reception is quite strong in Las Vegas. You can get some shading if you get behind a mountain or in places blocked from the transmitters like BC.

AM has the capability of bending to the atmosphere. That is why all but clear channel stations have to cut their power at night. They have too much range. FM is pretty much line of sight.

On my Amateur equipment (If I ever get my antenna back up) I can work all of the way to the other side of the Pacific on some nights and to Hawaii or more most nights. That is with 100 watts of power. I don't add more power as that is as far as I can hear. That is using a version of AM at frequencies a bit above the AM broadcast bands.

I would also note that I get 65 or so TV channels over the air with a relatively simple elevated antenna. I think that much more challenging than AM or FM radio.

CQ, CQ, come in lvoc: Do you use some kind of DX equipment for the 65 TV signals?



(No I don't know code, only a couple of things I picked up from a heck of a ham operator that was my mentor in broadcasting. And I suppose if the florescent lights go on in my garage I'll know you got your antenna back up.)