>>43821515For me I just randomly scan, it's easier with radio ofc but TV also goes further at night.
Due to the advent of Digital Modulation though, it can be a little harder, think of it like fishing.
It's usually a mixture of atmospheric conditions, time of night, and even weather at times.
There is a thing called Sporadic E Propagation which can also make it go further, which also happens with FM.
Pretty much parts of the atmosphere can get heavily ionized and they reflect signals back towards the earth, normally FM and TV just go out into space or lose energy in the sky. Take that with some salt cause I'm no expert as much as I like to pretend to be lol.
I also usually just fidget with my antenna and move it around to get further away things but the main method is just scanning at night.
As I said though, Digital TV can be harder also due to the fact that it's a constant data stream. If you lose some of it you lose all of it, and you reach a point known as the Digital Cliff which is where instead of just fading out of existence as distance increases, it just DROPS like a rock off a cliff.
AM and Shortwave are a lot easier to pick up faraway stuff with due to their signals being analog and their radio waves being differently sized iirc?
AM and Shortwave go up into the sky and hit a part of the atmosphere (the ionosphere) which reflects back towards the earth over the horizon like a giant mirror. AM doesnt get as far but you can get incredibly impressive distance at night! While shortwave is designed to take advantage of this and can go all around the world.
The other night I picked up Japan actually, I live in Wisconsin so that was about 12,000 miles from me.
Interesting hits I got on Shortwave:
NHK World Radio, Japan,
Radio Nikkei(?), Japan,
Radio Romania,
Some jazz someone was airing in Cuba,
And chinese singing.
Sorry if this is kind of off topic this is something I've always been very, for lack of a better way of putting it, autistic about.
