Sirius/XM
 

wrote:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 09:58:37 -0400, John H
wrote:

Yesterday I came back from Gettysburg, about 100 miles. It wasn't until
I got within about 80 miles
that I could pick up the FM news station I listen to regularly
broadcasting from DC. It's for damn
sure I couldn't get any Boston FM stations, like, I'm sure, Harry does.

FM is pretty much line of sight. I know that even here in Florida
where there are no real hills FM is tough. On a clear night I can get
the FM station out of Marathon (Fl Keys) but that is across the water
about 100 miles. I start losing the Tampa stations and FT Myers
stations about 70 miles away. There is a dead zone around Venice where
I don't get either of them.
Now if you are talking AM, the clear channel 50KW stations can be
heard 1000 miles away at night. There used to only be a handful of
them but the last time I looked there are a **** load of them. I guess
as AM popularity faded, they started allowing more big ones.
Unfortunately it seems most AM is either sports, news or Spanish.



I like the comedy channels on Sirius, and driving to Los Angeles there is a
very good 40-60's station, but only for part of the way. Other than that
it is talk stations and Spanish language stations. But being thrifty,
looking for a good deal for the renewal.

Sirius/XM
 

On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 11:58:48 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:



I've found some long stretches on I-95 on the way to or back from
Florida where for long stretches, there are no FM stations we want to
listen to, so if we want music, it'll be bluetooth from our "i" devices.

I gave up on the radio 18 years ago. I have had some sort of MP3
player in my car since 1999. I have always preferred my own tunes. In
fact I did not have a radio in my 69 Corvette either. I only had an 8
track, the one that came from my 67 Chevelle. There was a succession
of 8 track players after that.
There was a miserable decade using cassettes and CDs but I was happy
to leave them behind.
When it became possible to have my tunes without carrying around
little bits of plastic, I was all in. I don't even want to think about
how many times I have had to buy some songs, either because the media
was obsolete or that it simply failed.

Sirius/XM
 

On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 12:46:18 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

FM is pretty much line of sight. I know that even here in Florida
where there are no real hills FM is tough. On a clear night I can get
the FM station out of Marathon (Fl Keys) but that is across the water
about 100 miles. I start losing the Tampa stations and FT Myers
stations about 70 miles away. There is a dead zone around Venice where
I don't get either of them.
Now if you are talking AM, the clear channel 50KW stations can be
heard 1000 miles away at night. There used to only be a handful of
them but the last time I looked there are a **** load of them. I guess
as AM popularity faded, they started allowing more big ones.
Unfortunately it seems most AM is either sports, news or Spanish.


HD FM range is much less than regular FM.

WBZ in Boston is one of the original clear channel stations. I picked
it up in Denver Colorado at night. Obviously skip.


We were AM DXers when I was a kid ... sort of. I had a 100' long wire
antenna out back, connected to a 5 bottle radio and we could pick up
WLS WBZ and WOWO just about every night. There were only about 5 or 6
clear channel stations then and the ones out west were usually not
available to us. I got started after being in Lake of the Ozarks with
the Teamsters and being introduced to Dick Biondi by the locals. I was
thrilled to get him on my radio in DC. I have picked WLS in my car
driving down I-95 in the middle of the night but it was far from 5X5.

Sirius/XM
 

wrote:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 12:46:18 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

FM is pretty much line of sight. I know that even here in Florida
where there are no real hills FM is tough. On a clear night I can get
the FM station out of Marathon (Fl Keys) but that is across the water
about 100 miles. I start losing the Tampa stations and FT Myers
stations about 70 miles away. There is a dead zone around Venice where
I don't get either of them.
Now if you are talking AM, the clear channel 50KW stations can be
heard 1000 miles away at night. There used to only be a handful of
them but the last time I looked there are a **** load of them. I guess
as AM popularity faded, they started allowing more big ones.
Unfortunately it seems most AM is either sports, news or Spanish.


HD FM range is much less than regular FM.

WBZ in Boston is one of the original clear channel stations. I picked
it up in Denver Colorado at night. Obviously skip.


We were AM DXers when I was a kid ... sort of. I had a 100' long wire
antenna out back, connected to a 5 bottle radio and we could pick up
WLS WBZ and WOWO just about every night. There were only about 5 or 6
clear channel stations then and the ones out west were usually not
available to us. I got started after being in Lake of the Ozarks with
the Teamsters and being introduced to Dick Biondi by the locals. I was
thrilled to get him on my radio in DC. I have picked WLS in my car
driving down I-95 in the middle of the night but it was far from 5X5.


Longest distance I got, was coming back from Keesler AFB and going over
Donner Pass, got the New Orleans AM station that was on my presets. Came
in very well.

Sirius/XM
 

On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 12:56:55 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 8/16/2017 11:11 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 07:23:55 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:


I have a USB powered hard drive that some friends put together for my
birthday that has just about every group, band and song ever recorded. I
think it's a 200 Gig drive and it's just about full. I listen to it
once in a great while.
I really have a hard time wrapping my head around this. I have a
little over 30 gig of music and that is more than 6000 songs. That
includes some I have never and probably never will hear. I can't
imagine what you could have that gets you up to 200 gig and that you
have actually listened to 40,000 songs. That is about 200,000 minutes
of music. (3300 hours). If you started playing that list it would take
4 1/2 months going 24/7.
I hope you have clipped out much smaller subsets of this catalog to
make it useful.
How do you manage a list like this?
It does make you and Harry much more prolific pirates than me and I
thought I was Black Beard. (mostly gray now) ;-)



The songs on the hard drive is a collection that my luthier/lawyer
friend has been putting together all his mature life. He played in a
garage band in the mid-sixties and his group had a "hit" that made it to
number 80 on the charts. Name of the band was "The Nightcrawlers" from
Daytona Beach, FL.

He has them all arranged in folders by band/group with at least one
album ... often several for each. Starts with 40's Big Band stuff, the
50's, 60's and 70's where it sorta dies off although there are some from
the 80's. I don't think I've listened to 10 or 20 percent of what's on
the disk. It's fun to browse through it though and find songs I haven't
heard in years. Some are fairly rare recordings that never made the charts.

Once in a while I'll hook it up to my computer (used to use the little
XP machine I've mentioned) and create a playlist from the drive.

It may be worth getting a thumb drive, 8g is usually plenty and
putting your favorites out there. Plug that into your car player and
you may never turn the radio on again.

Sirius/XM
 

On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 12:59:45 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:



I had Sirius (before they merged with XM) years ago when I was doing a
lot of driving between MA and FL. You're right ... seems you would find
a decent FM station but a half hour later it would be fading. I used to
listen to some of the talk shows on the trips. Kept me awake.

I like comedy on the road. I have about 10g of classic routines from
comics going back to the 50s. It is interesting how Mort Saul still
stands up.

Sirius/XM
 

On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 13:20:06 -0400, Keyser Söze
wrote:

wrote:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 10:52:11 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

I don't mind the commercials if I am listening to a commercial radio or
TV station...the commercials pay the bills. Without advertising, every
piece of 20-year-old stuff you own would have been more expensive.

Bull****.
If you compare the price of heavily advertised products to products
that seldom advertise, the advertised product is always more. Someone
needs to pay for those ads and it is not like we would stop using
toilet paper if they did't have that bear on TV telling us to.
Another example is beer. Most people could not tell the difference
between Budweiser and Busch if it was served in a glass. Both come
from the same brewery, using essentially the same ingredients but the
Bud is a couple bucks more expensive, because of that frog.


Sell that to your libertarian buddies. I know better.

What part is wrong? BTW that is not a libertarian issue at all but I
know it is your go to brain fart

Sirius/XM
 

On 8/16/17 3:33 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 13:20:06 -0400, Keyser Söze
wrote:

wrote:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 10:52:11 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

I don't mind the commercials if I am listening to a commercial radio or
TV station...the commercials pay the bills. Without advertising, every
piece of 20-year-old stuff you own would have been more expensive.

Bull****.
If you compare the price of heavily advertised products to products
that seldom advertise, the advertised product is always more. Someone
needs to pay for those ads and it is not like we would stop using
toilet paper if they did't have that bear on TV telling us to.
Another example is beer. Most people could not tell the difference
between Budweiser and Busch if it was served in a glass. Both come
from the same brewery, using essentially the same ingredients but the
Bud is a couple bucks more expensive, because of that frog.


Sell that to your libertarian buddies. I know better.

What part is wrong? BTW that is not a libertarian issue at all but I
know it is your go to brain fart


Your belief that advertising does not lower prices for products and
services.

Sirius/XM
 

On Wednesday, August 16, 2017 at 3:05:51 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 12:46:18 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

FM is pretty much line of sight. I know that even here in Florida
where there are no real hills FM is tough. On a clear night I can get
the FM station out of Marathon (Fl Keys) but that is across the water
about 100 miles. I start losing the Tampa stations and FT Myers
stations about 70 miles away. There is a dead zone around Venice where
I don't get either of them.
Now if you are talking AM, the clear channel 50KW stations can be
heard 1000 miles away at night. There used to only be a handful of
them but the last time I looked there are a **** load of them. I guess
as AM popularity faded, they started allowing more big ones.
Unfortunately it seems most AM is either sports, news or Spanish.


HD FM range is much less than regular FM.

WBZ in Boston is one of the original clear channel stations. I picked
it up in Denver Colorado at night. Obviously skip.


We were AM DXers when I was a kid ... sort of. I had a 100' long wire
antenna out back, connected to a 5 bottle radio and we could pick up
WLS WBZ and WOWO just about every night. There were only about 5 or 6
clear channel stations then and the ones out west were usually not
available to us. I got started after being in Lake of the Ozarks with
the Teamsters and being introduced to Dick Biondi by the locals. I was
thrilled to get him on my radio in DC. I have picked WLS in my car
driving down I-95 in the middle of the night but it was far from 5X5.

I used to get WLS in SC at night. Conditions had to be right.

Years ago I had the biggest TV antenna Channel Master made on a rotor at the top of a ~30ft pole. After midnight I could turn it towards Atlanta and pick up WKLS 96 Rock and it was listenable. That was nearly 200 miles away.

Sirius/XM
 

On 8/16/2017 3:30 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 12:56:55 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 8/16/2017 11:11 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 07:23:55 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:


I have a USB powered hard drive that some friends put together for my
birthday that has just about every group, band and song ever recorded. I
think it's a 200 Gig drive and it's just about full. I listen to it
once in a great while.
I really have a hard time wrapping my head around this. I have a
little over 30 gig of music and that is more than 6000 songs. That
includes some I have never and probably never will hear. I can't
imagine what you could have that gets you up to 200 gig and that you
have actually listened to 40,000 songs. That is about 200,000 minutes
of music. (3300 hours). If you started playing that list it would take
4 1/2 months going 24/7.
I hope you have clipped out much smaller subsets of this catalog to
make it useful.
How do you manage a list like this?
It does make you and Harry much more prolific pirates than me and I
thought I was Black Beard. (mostly gray now) ;-)



The songs on the hard drive is a collection that my luthier/lawyer
friend has been putting together all his mature life. He played in a
garage band in the mid-sixties and his group had a "hit" that made it to
number 80 on the charts. Name of the band was "The Nightcrawlers" from
Daytona Beach, FL.

He has them all arranged in folders by band/group with at least one
album ... often several for each. Starts with 40's Big Band stuff, the
50's, 60's and 70's where it sorta dies off although there are some from
the 80's. I don't think I've listened to 10 or 20 percent of what's on
the disk. It's fun to browse through it though and find songs I haven't
heard in years. Some are fairly rare recordings that never made the charts.

Once in a while I'll hook it up to my computer (used to use the little
XP machine I've mentioned) and create a playlist from the drive.

It may be worth getting a thumb drive, 8g is usually plenty and
putting your favorites out there. Plug that into your car player and
you may never turn the radio on again.


I've been meaning to try plugging in the hard drive my lawyer friend
gave me into one of the USB ports in the Canyon. I don't know if it
will work or how it will be displayed on the truck's screen (assuming it
will).