Radio During the Day or at Night, AM or FM?

[Erik Tracy]

I'll play.

I live at the bottom of a canyon and don't get good TV/FM reception - so I have to stream when at home.

So strictly speaking, Radio time is in the car or truck: FM during the day when driving about town and it's the local listener supported jazz station KSDS which is very low key.

 

[Pio1980]

I generally have NPR news and public affairs on FM during the day when not playing selected media music. Evenings, I stream NPR classical, or AM news out of Chicago or NYC since the entertainment paspect of AM DX has been largely replaced by "info-tainment" programming BS artists and their enablers. The days of Jean Shepard and Art Bell are long gone, George Noory is not and never was Art Bell. Rollye James does do entertainment nights out of WLS AM 720 Chicago, she just never caught on with me like their earlier lineup.

 

[ra7c7er]

Are their actually less commercials at night? I've never noted that to be the case. I used to track the length of commercial breaks on my hour commute (62 minutes) at 11 pm. because I felt like they played longer commercial breaks then my initial drive into work at noon. Which they did by over a minute each break. Maybe that was just the stations I was listening to.

When listening to the radio which is pretty much only in the car anymore it's WLCA a college station that plays indie stuff.

 

[Duane]

I'll play.

I live at the bottom of a canyon and don't get good TV/FM reception - so I have to stream when at home.

So strictly speaking, Radio time is in the car or truck: FM during the day when driving about town and it's the local listener supported jazz station KSDS which is very low key.

From what I remember in the 70's, it was the same back then.

Haven't listened to radio for decades.

 

[brian222]

FM. Night and through the night. I have 4 stations saved and can find them in the dark.
Espn, CBS sports, classical Interlochen, and jazz WCMU. Headphones.

 

[DB-7]

I'm finding it more and more difficult to listen to FM music stations. I don't mind the commercials, but I swear with most music stations, the program directors job is the easiest job in the world. Same playlist everyday, same time everyday, sometimes twice a day. Endless loop of overplayed songs.

 

[BillyTheKid]

FM mono in the kitchen once in a while. A small local college station that has commercial free golden oldies...50's thru 80's. Good mix, not the same old same old.
The signal is too weak for the car. ..but i could stream it.

FM in the car on a short trip, probably NPR from Boston.

AM if the Providence College Friars are playing and I want to hear the live broadcast by John and Joe. But often I stream the AM channel.

 

[Lavane]

I used to listen to FM stereo a lot, until I moved to a radio wasteland. I finally sold my beloved Kenwood KT-8300 and now it’s either Qobuz or internet radio. We were listening to WFMT in the Chicagoland area last night, and the SQ was better than expected. To be truthful, I don’t miss FM at all.

I'm in a FM waist land myself. Without a good directional antenna on a rotor, it's really not worth listening to at home except for backbround music. I have an outdoor omni directional antenna, but I live in a bowl. Surrounded by levees and high tension power lines. FM drops out frequently driving around town too.

 

[Ron Brown]

I'm in a FM waist land myself. Without a good directional antenna on a rotor, it's really not worth listening to at home except for backbround music. I have an outdoor omni directional antenna, but I live in a bowl. Surrounded by levees and high tension power lines. FM drops out frequently driving around town too.

I bought my Nikko STA-7070 receiver from a fellow who lived in a radio wasteland. He swore up and down that the AM and FM sections probably didn't work because he got no signal whatsoever. I got it home and was blasting KSHE 95 within minutes. I'm in a bit of a low spot, but there are several very powerful transmitters nearby.

 

[Lavane]

I bought my Nikko STA-7070 receiver from a fellow who lived in a radio wasteland. He swore up and down that the AM and FM sections probably didn't work because he got no signal whatsoever. I got it home and was blasting KSHE 95 within minutes. I'm in a bit of a low spot, but there are several very powerful transmitters nearby.

I have a couple strong stations near me, but one is an over modulated Mexican station, and the other is privately owned and plays 80's and 90's pop music.
I do pull in a couple of those corporate owned Rock stations that can sound decent in mono or with a tuner with hi blend. But they play the same old 70's rock. The only difference is the name of the station. You know the type with names like "The Eagle", "The Bear, "The Thunder", etc.

 

[RunOutGroove]

I generally have NPR news and public affairs on FM during the day when not playing selected media music. Evenings, I stream NPR classical, or AM news out of Chicago or NYC since the entertainment paspect of AM DX has been largely replaced by "info-tainment" programming BS artists and their enablers. The days of Jean Shepard and Art Bell are long gone, George Noory is not and never was Art Bell. Rollye James does do entertainment nights out of WLS AM 720 Chicago, she just never caught on with me like their earlier lineup.

I grew up listening to NPR because my mom always had it on. I thought it was all boring though and always wanted to listen to the rock station instead. I remember Jean Shepard's show which was another thing that just seemed a bit too old-timey for me as a kid, but I'd probably like it now. I have a few friends that some decades ago were big into Art Bell's show though oddly I never caught it. I don't think that it was on the local NPR affiliate though. It seems that a lot of us grow to be more and more like our parents, so it isn't surprising that I listen to NPR more than just about anything else these days and the kinds of stuff on there that I would have once thought of as too dry are really interesting to me now...

 

[needforspeed]

Very early AM, My local and excellent JAZZ station with a Kenwood tuner

 

[Blue Shadow]

FM is the rock loop clearly targeted to an aging audience based on the "do you have a limp noodle" commercials that are a regular part of the mix.

Geez use the other end of the dial. MMR and MGK, only if they are playing a song I like and then I have to leave before the end because for some reason every time Stairway to Heaven plays the djs insist on blasting in loud at the end of it.

 

[Ron Brown]

I generally have NPR news and public affairs on FM during the day when not playing selected media music. Evenings, I stream NPR classical, or AM news out of Chicago or NYC since the entertainment paspect of AM DX has been largely replaced by "info-tainment" programming BS artists and their enablers. The days of Jean Shepard and Art Bell are long gone, George Noory is not and never was Art Bell. Rollye James does do entertainment nights out of WLS AM 720 Chicago, she just never caught on with me like their earlier lineup.

I like Coast to Coast AM, but rarely listen to radio that late. Sometimes, though...

 

[Pio1980]

I grew up listening to NPR because my mom always had it on. I thought it was all boring though and always wanted to listen to the rock station instead. I remember Jean Shepard's show which was another thing that just seemed a bit too old-timey for me as a kid, but I'd probably like it now. I have a few friends that some decades ago were big into Art Bell's show though oddly I never caught it. I don't think that it was on the local NPR affiliate though. It seems that a lot of us grow to be more and more like our parents, so it isn't surprising that I listen to NPR more than just about anything else these days and the kinds of stuff on there that I would have once thought of as too dry are really interesting to me now...

Art Bell was only syndicated on AM "Coast-To-Coast". His ofttimes engaging entertaining show sold a lot of C.Crane radios and Selecta-tenna tuned loop reception boosters to avid listeners. One memorable set of broadcasts involved a time traveler and "The Philadelphia Experiment". He had his ups and downs with the show before he passed, including dealing with a toxic disgruntled former featured frequent guest, and essentially ruining the career of a replacement host when he decided to un-retire after the guy had ended his sucessful former gig to take over the show. Even so, he had a gift for radio tho I found some of the topics uninteresting and ignored them.

 

[gadget73]

Geez use the other end of the dial. MMR and MGK, only if they are playing a song I like and then I have to leave before the end because for some reason every time Stairway to Heaven plays the djs insist on blasting in loud at the end of it.

I really just can't get into XPN's programming. I know its beloved but it seems like every time I turn it on, whatever they are playing is not something I have any interest in listening to. Rowan is hit and miss, sometimes its good, sometimes its bad 80s pop.

 

[Bill Ferris]

. I cannot do commercial radio at all.

,,

 

[Bill Ferris]

Haven't listened to radio for decades.

Same here, not since 1992, when my local FM radio programing drove me to go buy a 10 CD cartridge type Sony rack mount player, with a handful of extra cartridges to fill up with my CDs in 1994 or 5 for my birthday.

 

[oldflame]

This topic dragged good memories from my Far-Back files and wish I could recreate that experience. As a grade-schooler, in 1963, at bedtime, in the dark, I regularly listened to a local 250 (nighttime watts) AM station on my bedside Arvin, four-tube, radio. The British Beatles, Dave Clarke Five, Kinks, Peter & Gordon, Stones etc. were overtaking the Four Seasons, Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, Lou Christie, and other American bands, in popularity. It was a magical "new wave" of tune treasures enhanced by the glow of those tubes in the dark.

As you all know: now, almost nuttin's new on AM or FM. Back then, besides all of the live radio personalities, I could reliably receive more distant AM rock stations: Milwaukee's WOKY, Chi-Town's WLS, Little Rock's KAAY (?), WBZ from Boston, and (I forget) a popular station from Ft. Wayne, IN. These stations needed my larger 1935 RCA & a long-wire antenna. Great fun.

 

[AdamAnt316]

In the morning, I generally listen to one of the local FM sports talk stations using the Boston Acoustics Recepter on my bedside table (though I have a Proton 320 in reserve). Occasionally I'll cycle through the presets, listening to music on FM or AM (there are a couple of stations around here which still play oldies on AM, including WGHM 900 and WMEX 1510). From time to time, I'll fire up my Hammarlund SP-600 J-25 'boatanchor' receiver at night and see what's going on on what's left of the shortwave bands. Not nearly as much left to listen to as there once was, but occasionally I'll come across something interesting. Here are some photos of said radios: