speaking of radios, we are still part of the prepared and preparing in that category, since it is a little further down the list than water, food, shelter, clothing and firearms plus plenty of ammo for people perforation as ron calls it.
we are investigating ways to enhance our receiving range so that we have more choices in case brown-outs or black outs affect nearby stations.
does ANYONE know of any FCC plans or FCC URLS that talk about what contingency planning the FCC has made for alternate power and increased signal strength for various AM stations? for FM stations? maybe a list of call letters of the strongest stations NOW that possibly could increase wattage and cover more 'area?'
ac6v.com is a list of clear channel
frequenies and the stations on them. The AM medium wave
broadcast band is divided into clear channel freqs with
a few high powered stations widely spaced, and normal
freqs with many lower powered stations sharing the freq.
The key to distant reception is a good receiver and a good
antenna, if the radio will accept an external antenna.
Had a neighbor once who was a medium wave AM listener
hobbyist. On his equipment, I've heard BBC London while
in San Diego, and Japanese stations are regularly received
on car radios in the early mornings. Note this is standard
AM, not short wave broadcasts. I consider short wave
reception capability important to have also.
For extended FM reception, consider feeding your TV antenna
to your FM receiver. The FM receiver portion of stereo systems
are generally decent receivers and accept external antennas.
Of course, with power off, you may have to turn the TV antenna by hand :)
Radio stations generally have only a transmitter built
for the power output they are authorized to use, and they
already transmit that power. It wouldn't help for the FCC
to tell a 50 KW station they can run 200 KW - it would take
a couple of years to get a new 200 KW transmitter and
install it. Smaller stations often are required to have
directional patterns, and to use lower power after dark,
to prevent interfering with particular nearby stations,
and it would be possible for them to go non-directional
if that station were off the air, but keeping track of
where the power was off and transmitting more to that
direction for a perhaps limited period of time sounds
unlikely.
Set up for PM if you want more info. |
