Radio stations....

[albacore]

I live in a small town in the NW, and there is a large, wooded park behind our house.
I have a bear that regularly comes thru and destroys my bird feeder.
I put up a motion detector light - with two sockets. I put a spotlight bulb in one and a screw-in plug adaptor in the other. Plugged an old-fashioned radio in the adaptor and set it up to come on for about 30 seconds if motion was detected at night.
Works like a charm.
Only problem is... the loudest, most obnoxious station I can find is RW screamers. Two different stations. The rock stations drift off frequency, and the pop stations' music/talk is too subdued.
Why is it that the best radio reception is from the worst stations? Are they over-powered or something?

[rurallib]

1. There are AM stations left over from way back in the early days (1930s)

that were allowed to power up to 50,000 watts so they could cover most of the country at night. You may recognize some of these such as WGN and WLS in Chicago.

I do not know if the NW had such critters, although there were probably some stations in your area that were allowed to be more powerful at night than other stations. The Rocky Mountains kind of acted as a divide between the 50,000 Watters in the east and midwest and the west coast.

Fast forward to the 1990s and Bill Clinton signs the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This allows media companies to own more than a limited amount of TV and radio stations.

A company that eventually became ClearChannel scooped up most of the 50,000 watt stations on the AM dial and turned them into the right wing crazy stations that they are now. So I would imagine they also scooped up whatever powerful stations you have in your area.

ClearChannel has morphed into IHeartMedia Corp, but still owns over 1000 of the biggest AM stations in the country. So that is why when you turn on an AM radio station that comes in real well at night that they are right wing crazies. They were once the 50,000 watt stations that were given permission from the FCC to power up to 50,000 watts after sundown.

Then in the 1990s they were all (almost all?) bought bu ClearChannel (now IHeartMedia) and turned into right wing boomers.

The few that ClearChannel didn't scoop up were probably bought by a little smaller company called Cumulus that also turned these stations into RW boom boxes. And that is why there is little liberal radio and little local radio in the US today.

Edit to add: I live in Iowa and spent much of my summers staying up all night trying to get the 50,000 watt stations at night. I can probably still remember most of their call signals and dial numbers.

[Mosby]

2. Radio Garden is a nice app.

[rurallib]

4. I have heard of it. I now have a computer radio that gets stations

from all over the world that I am pretty happy with.

I listen to a lot of YouTube when I am on the computer, but JFC they play so many commercials.

[albacore]

6. Thanks... that's the most logical explanation. nt

[Tetrachloride]

3. Polkas.

[Mosby]

5. Polkas

Listen to Polka Jammer Network from Westfield MA live on Radio Garden: https://radio.garden/listen/polka-jammer-network/iwUCI7Ch

[Sanity Claws]

8. good choice

I doubt the bear will break out in a polka but it would be nice to see if it did.

[IcyPeas]

7. Just goes to show ya' ... even the bears hate RW radio... so your plan is working.

[happybird]

9. Around here it's the country stations

They all come in clear as a bell while everything else fades in and out of static. And there are so many of them!
I love me some bluegrass and old country (Johnny, Merle, Willie, Hank Sr, etc) but just can’t do modern country.