When I lived in Hoover, Alabama in the mid 1970s, (in between stints at The Shore) I could get WGN 720 AM from Chicago late at night. A distance of about 660 miles as the crow flies. AM stands for Amplitude Modulation, so that is why you can pick up AM radio stations further from the source than FM radio stations.
Driving home from PSU games could pick up LSU and Kentucky FB games.
On a clear night, my old man could get Phillies games on WIP on the Vermont-Quebec border. He had an ancient AM radio that would somehow dial it in and we’d listen to Richie Ashburn make the calls.
My dad would tell me how much he appreciated Ashburn. He was part of a three-brother middle-kids cohort, five years age difference top to bottom. They lived in East Orange and would take the trains to all three MLB ballparks in New York; they saw everybody. Lol, their dad would insist that these trips happen only during doubleheaders. I saw my Uncle Bill last week and he had pictures of the three ballparks up on his wall, along with an autographed picture of Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr (my dad’s family was originally from Boston).
I used to love when the Reds played west coast games because I would listen to their games from the Jersey shore as much as I could on “The Big One, 700 WLW.” Starting about 9:00 or so you could catch a pretty decent signal on a clear night. 10:30 summer starts were like gold to me because I could stay up and listen to the whole games with little static.
No doubt, XM has superior sound quality.....But as a kid, there was something very satisfying having that little transistor radio in bed with you at night, especially after fiddling around with a crystal radio just a couple years before. It was also excellent for running the earphone wire up your sleeve with your head leaning on your hand at your school desk, listening to the afternoon world series game
Yeah, those were the days of powerful AM clear channel stations. I remember being able to get KDKA in Pgh as far away as parts of Florida at night. There are still those type of stations, but the signals don't seem to be as clear as they once were from a distance at night. I was told by an antique radio repairman that much of the interference you seem to get now is due to cell phone towers.
yeah, those were the days, although i can't remember many call letters any more. can remember listening to the geeter in philly, cousin brucie in ny(abc?) a raft of djsin boston, dick biondi in buffalo(wkbw?). biondi was always getting fired. left buffalo, and i couldn't find him. later was running dials one night and found him in chicago(wls?). can remember after a fb game in 61, a few of us showered and were heading for a friday night dance. they were running hs scores from the chicago area. we called and gave our game school. they actually read on the air. though we were pretty hot sh**ts after that
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Really Jam,He also was summer resident at Lake Winola in NEPA.
I saw the same show at the Crawford County Fair, also in ‘85.
