Radio-Locator Help Page

Radio Station Reception Range

This application finds radio stations in your listening area. It tries to determine how well you can receive each station from your location based upon the distance to that station's transmitter, the transmitter power, and (for FM stations only) the height of the station's antenna. You must choose one of the following four options:

Local Stations Only:

This will find all of the stations that have a moderate or stronger signal at your location and which can be received moderately well or better on most radios.

Include Distant Stations:

This will find more distant stations or stations with weaker signals. Reception of weaker stations will require a better quality radio receiver or antenna.

Include Fringe Stations:

This will find radio stations that probably cannot be heard from your location without an aerial-type directional antenna. Many of these "very weak" stations may not be picked up from your location at all due to local interference.

Find stations within ____ miles of your location:

This will find all of the stations within a specified range. This search option does not consider the stations' transmitter powers or antenna heights, only the distances to the stations. The maximum range for this type of search is 150 miles. If you enter a frequency here, then the search will only retrieve stations at that frequency, but the maximum range will be 2500 miles. Also, if you search by frequency here, a compass bearing will be shown for each station from your location.

Please note that there are many different factors that affect reception of a radio station, including interference from terrain and buildings, interference from other radio stations, and atmospheric effects. Your actual results may vary.

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