After 7 years and 9 months... you can listen to BVST this coming Wednesday from 7 to 9 pm EST on 1690 AM!

Think you're outta range? You'd be surprised... From the CJLO AM blog:

Our initial estimates on the broadcast radius of CJLO was 30 kilometers in the day*, centered at the middle of the island in eastern Lachine. It's far enough to reach all of Laval, Longueuil, as well as from St-Anne's to Riviere des Prairies. The estimate was more than enough for our needs.

* (Quick note: AM radio waves go further at night, since the sun's rays interfere with them. When the sun's down (or on a VERY overcast day) the AM waves can travel further. Thus, the best time to listen to CJLO from anywhere is a cloudy night in December. )

Then we turned the transmitter on. Almost right away, we began to receive reports of people hearing us in L'Assomption (40km away), on the route to Quebec City. Not long after that, one of our listeners (and forum members) confirmed he could hear us from Ottawa (150km) during the afternoon. I drove up to Huntington (55km south-west of Montreal) and heard our signal loud and clear on my car radio at the peak of the afternoon. Yesterday, our AM consultant heard from someone in Quebec City (230km) itself that they were able to hear us very clearly during the day.

It looks like we were grossly underestimating our broadcast radius by at least 100%, most likely considerably more. And that's just from your standard household / car radios.

Shortwave radio operators often have larger antennas and more powerful receivers than the average person. They're able to pick up radio stations from much further away. Not long after we turned the transmitter on, I received a report from a man in Gasport, New York (460km away) who picked us up on his shortwave rig. Our signal was quite strong there, and still clear enough for him to hear our music and test message. To put thing into perspective, Toronto is about 510km away from Montreal in roughly the same direction.

Now for the piece de resistance. Today I received an email from a gentleman that heard our signal from the furthest distance yet. He's also a shortwave operator with a larger antenna / receiver than the average person. He recorded a sample of what he received, which he sent along with his message. You can listen to it here. It's a little garbled, but if you listen closely, you can hear the French test message. You can also listen to the original message for a comparison.

How far away is this guy? New York (500km)? No. Further. Florida (~2000km)? Keep going. Vancouver (3800km?) Closer, but in the wrong direction. No, in fact, our signal made it all the way to Scotland! The town itself is Troon, located about 4800km away from Montreal. That's about 1/10th of the way around the planet!

What does this mean for you and I? Well, for starters, it means that almost anyone around Montreal will definitely be able to pick us up. Sadly, the downtown core does dampen the signal a bit, what with all the concrete and metal and what have you. Hell, even CJAD has trouble fully reaching downtown, and they have a 100,000 watt transmitter (we're running at 1000 watts). Suffice it to say, we're doing pretty well for ourselves.

Update: Since I posted that last message, I've received email from radio operators from East Yorkshire in the UK, from a few kilometers out of Helsinki, Finland, and from Sweden, 200km out of Stockholm. That's incredible. So far as local listeners go, with a good old standard AM radio, we've been heard as far as the Gaspésie.