Do you listen to AM Radio???
- Thread starter Mr Tony
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I have XM, listen to deeptracks mostly, but recently bought a Grundig radio. As a kid, I enjoyed listening to philadelphia, Cincy, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Houston, Pittsburgh, Detroit , Cleveland, Atlanta , Chicago baseball games, also the big 1090, KAAY, Little Rock, and Beaker street. Sometimes I'll Turn on the Grundig and span the dial to see what frequencies are available. Living 100 miles Sw of Chicago, its amazing the stations the radio pulls in when the atmospheric conditions are right. From Canada to Mexico and Atlanta to Denver.
I picked listen a bit, but really its been years since I was on that band. I remember my father bringing home an 8 transistor radio sometime during the early sixties, I think it was a birthday gift, I spent a lot of nights when I was supposed to be sleeping in bed listening to music on WRKO in Boston, there was also a station in Buffalo that I liked but I can't remember the call.
My first car was a '59 VW bug, it had no radio so I took one out of a '41 buick, it was a big honking thing, put a strap around it and bolted it to the floor on the passenger side....young guys just gotta have tunes
My first car was a '59 VW bug, it had no radio so I took one out of a '41 buick, it was a big honking thing, put a strap around it and bolted it to the floor on the passenger side....young guys just gotta have tunes
Thanks. You can say that again! When we first moved here, it was like what the heck was that, because by the time you heard them, they were gone. But after I found the freq to tell me they were coming, I had enough warning to go out and watch for them, and it has become quite a hobby taking pictures of them.
Had one plane go over at night, and had a bunch of lights in a triangle shape. You couldn't see anything but the lights. It was going very slow, and fairly quiet. I was convinced that it was a UFO. Still don't have a clue what it was.
I used to listen to AM regularly in my adolescence, on an old Motorola AM radio (AA5 tube model, built on printed circuit board) and a Ford car radio that would run on almost nothing for power. I found FM by highschool, and FM DXing, my best tuners being car radios, including one which had AM-Stereo that worked better than FM-Stereo.
I went to commercial AM radio in thr 90s for talk, but went to the CBC on FM in the late 90s for day-to-day. It wasn't until the early 2000s that we got decent local music stations locally, so I didn't have to DX. I also got radio from satellite, form C-band, pay satellite, and recently FTA.
I went to commercial AM radio in thr 90s for talk, but went to the CBC on FM in the late 90s for day-to-day. It wasn't until the early 2000s that we got decent local music stations locally, so I didn't have to DX. I also got radio from satellite, form C-band, pay satellite, and recently FTA.
My favorite station is WOSU and it is on FM. I hardly ever listen to AM because the sound sucks compared to FM or HD radio.
That reminds me of the old Red Green "story" (for the fans of the show when he sits at his desk and talks to "us") one time he was talking about all the different ways to listen to music and this line still sticks
"If your ears cant tell the difference between AM and FM, what do you need dolby surround and hydro quadraphonic sound for?"
I marked AM --- but SSB is my real choice. Yes, commercial radio in this area on FM is mostly Spanish except for one public radio network on about 7 stations and a religious network (I did NOT say Christian) on another 5 or 6. I get 2 fairly local (60 miles or so) AM stations and KOMO - 1000 and KIRO 710 from Seattle 250 miles away.
Bj,
What kind of scanner are you using? I have the Bearcat 396T and use ARC396Pro software which turns the computer into a virtual scanner.
Mike Lib
I have several scanners, Bearcat 780, RS-2052, Yaesu VR-5000, Standard AX700, Yaesu VR-120, RS-PRO-97, and a couple older ones. The VR-5000 WAS my favorite, because it's all mode, DC-daylight, however the darn thing lost it's display. It still works, but I can't see what channel I'm on or program it. I mainly use my Bearcat 780 and the RS 2052, and wrote a program for the 780 to log freq and time for what it scans {and it gives a virtual view of the buttons on the scanner that I can press with the computer mouse}, while I used a nice program called RecALL, that can record what both scanners hear, also time stamping the recordings for comparison to the freq logs. It worked pretty well, but we re-modeled our living room a while back, and I had to rip out all the wires, and haven't gotten them all re-connected yet, so I'm not doing the computerized stuff right now, but I'm going to hook it up again soon. The 780 is real easy to write programs for. I also wrote programs for the VR-5000, but that scanner is incredibly slow when controlled by a computer. When outside, I usually use either the VR-120 or PRO-97.
But all of the above scanners do the military aircraft band. Some of the other scanners only do the commercial aircraft band.
Thanks BJ,
I started scanner listening about twenty years ago, I moved to NJ and was only 6 air miles from Newark, NJ airport. I started to listen to the control tower and the local police on an old RS scanner. When I moved to South NJ the county had a trunked radio system so I purchased the Bearcat 396T. I also join the Bearcat 396 forum on Yahoo, it was my first time on a forum, I dropped them. They were not nice like the people I find on satelliteguys forum.
I see from Monitoring Times magazine that a lot of guys listen to military activity on their scanners. In the summer I listen to the military planes heading to Fort McQuire. Also see some F-14 around Atlantic City Airport, I think the Air National Guard has a wing stationed there. One day my wife and I were driving pass the airport and two fighter jets took off and they kicked in the jet afterburns just as they were over the car. Wow the noise and virbration was awesome.
10-4
Mike Lib
I think it's F-16s at Atlantic City, not F-14s. There aren't any F-14s flying anymore unfortunately. I did manage to get one good picture of an F-14 flying over my house before they disbanded them.
I listen to the KC-10s out of McGuire all the time. They do re-fueling in Northern Maine, among other places. I think their callsign is usually "TEAM" or "OPEC" or a few others .
Yes I do AM radio DXing, from time to time...... With a HD radio Sony table top radio receiver XDR-S3HD. I manage to lock the AM digital signal in like KOA Denver, CO and same goes, for KSL, Salt Lake City, UT and few of other stations as well too!!
As for scanner radio, I have AOR-8200 which cover from 150 KHz to around 2 GHz and I use to decode RTTY, PSK-31 analog and digital SSTV modes and not only that I also pick up aircraft's ACARS signal through the my computer's sound card.
I also have a Icom-IC-R3, which is a video and radio handheld comm, receiver which also covers 500 KHz to 2.4 GHz and handles analog AM and FM video modes.
Have the all the radio toys in the world, and still can't get enough of it!!
:
With a HD radio Sony table top radio receiver XDR-S3HD. I manage to lock the AM digital signal in like KOA Denver, CO and same goes, for KSL, Salt Lake City, UT and few of other stations as well too!! As for scanner radio, I have AOR-8200 which cover from 150 KHz to around 2 GHz and I use to decode RTTY, PSK-31 analog and digital SSTV modes and not only that I also pick up aircraft's ACARS signal through the my computer's sound card.
I also have a Icom-IC-R3, which is a video and radio handheld comm, receiver which also covers 500 KHz to 2.4 GHz and handles analog AM and FM video modes.
Have the all the radio toys in the world, and still can't get enough of it!!
:I listen to AM radio for about 5 hours per day. Most of the music stations on FM do not appeal to me. I listen to local AM radio each morning so that I can hear what is happening locally. I don't like the shock jock or 'funny guy' DJ's that FM typically has. I like to listen to the serious talk radio for the mornings. In the afternoon, our local radio station changes over to Dr Laura type syndicated junk, so at that point I switch over to XM radio for the afternoon.
Yes, I listen to AM radio.
There are the political shows of the left wing, right wing and libertarian variety; shows about finance, investing, legal stuff, automotive, health, real estate and home improvement. There there is Coast to Coast AM for the kooky conspiracy / supernatural / non-mainstream media stuff.
On the scanner, I listen to NOAA weather radio and police communication. The latter really makes me appreciate law enforcement handling routine stuff that goes on in the community. There's all of this stuff that happens where you never hear about it on the "news", unless it's drastic.
There are the political shows of the left wing, right wing and libertarian variety; shows about finance, investing, legal stuff, automotive, health, real estate and home improvement. There there is Coast to Coast AM for the kooky conspiracy / supernatural / non-mainstream media stuff.
On the scanner, I listen to NOAA weather radio and police communication. The latter really makes me appreciate law enforcement handling routine stuff that goes on in the community. There's all of this stuff that happens where you never hear about it on the "news", unless it's drastic.
I like in the morning hours before the sun comes up I get clearly
540 CBC Regina
600 Cedar Rapids, IA
670 Chicago
700 WLW Cincy
720 WGN Chicago
780 I think...Chicago
850 KOA Denver
540 CBC Regina
600 Cedar Rapids, IA
670 Chicago
700 WLW Cincy
720 WGN Chicago
780 I think...Chicago
850 KOA Denver
Guapoharry,
I lent my old 20 channel RS scanner to my neighbor, he was flabbergasted when he listened to the local and neighboring town police. He was amazed by the amount of auto accidents, domestic violence calls, and drug bust. We live in a relatively quite town, but from years of listening to the local police work, I realized that those kind of calls go on in all towns.
Mike Lib
No am stations around Halifax anymore. The last one left months ago.
I have a combo am/shortwave tube radio the was given to my grandparents as a wedding gift that I won't be listening to any time soon, if ever.
I have a combo am/shortwave tube radio the was given to my grandparents as a wedding gift that I won't be listening to any time soon, if ever.
Great AM Dxing Iceberg,
The Denver, CO Station is a good distance from your location. The Regina, Canada looks to be about the same distance north as the IA station is south. When I was working I had an hours drive and I would log all the stations I would received on each car trip. I got a map and marked all of the stations locations and then drew distant circles on the map. This gave me an idea on how far the signal propagation was. The best dx was 750 miles the average was 500 miles.
Do you read John Sandford, Prey books, http://www.johnsandford.org/prey20.html? The stories usually take place in MN, the Minneapolis, St Paul area. The main character is Lucas Davenport works for the MN, Criminal Apprehension Unit. Great stories with a glimpse into the area where you live.
Mike Lib
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