This post is really for Loopnode.

At night, I can turn on the radio in my vehicle and pick up AM radio stations from as far away as Chicago. Tonight I was driving through South Carolina and listening to 650 WSM which is the "blowtorch" country station out of Nashville. I tired of that and switched over to a station from Chicago where the big topic was a traffic jam on lakeshore due to a U2 concert getting over.

Skipping is a phenomena unique to AM in the broadcast radio world.

It was probably WLS 890 or WGN 720. Those are clear channel stations in Chicago. Here in Los Angeles, KFI 640, another clear channel (owned by Clear Channel) can be heard at night as far away as New Mexico and Oregon.

I used to listen to sports talk all the time on AM as I worked. One machine would create too much static to listen. When I would turn another machine on, it would actually help draw the signal.

During my tenure in the city of brotherly love I used to listen to KYW Newsradio 1060.

hey Bornyo: I'm turning my AM dial on the radio and I think I picked up your radio signal over here.

Back home I loved the AM channel because they had all the jazz muzik which is typically what I listened to. Also AM had in my opinion, shitter but always more interesting muzik. I think if I could listen to radio today I'd try and pick up some small WA college radio signals that hopefully very few people listen to. Like Sequim Washington. Who the hell is listening to a radio signal from there? I've always had it difficult explaining what I like listening to. "Interesting" muzik never sounds right since it's very subjective what is interesting. Good muzik doesn't sound right either. And I really hate saying I listen to everything because I don't.

I don't listen to the radio anymore.

While I lived in Colorado and during my college days in South Carolina, I often listened to Cardinal baseball games on KMOX in St. Louis.

Ham radio uses the same phenomenom to make contacts all over the world. Where are you Charin ????
I used to listen to the Blues, NBA Hawks, Chicago and all that on AM radio in high school at night. That was pretty much all we had. FM was in it's infancy and you could tune up and down the band and only find a couple of stations at that time. My favorite was WLAC out of Nashville late at night. Ernies record mart with blues by the likes of Howling Wolf and Jimmy Reed. After that show was gospel music [the good kind by black performers].
Many people still DX the AM band for fun and write the stations requesting QSL cards