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An artistic illustration of an antique radio in the foreground with a stylized view of the Earth behind it, showing radio waves or magnetic field lines arcing across the globe from a point on the surface. The radio is a classic, brown wooden model with two large knobs, a tuning dial, and a retractable antenna. The Earth is depicted with swirling shades of green and tan continents against a dark blue ocean, set against a star-filled background with glowing, golden-orange lines flowing from its surface. The image evokes the concept of "skywave" radio propagation.

Why AM Reception Can Get Worse in the Summer – And Tips on What to Do About It

If your AM radio reception seems worse in the summer, you’re not imagining things. Between long daylight hours, more interference, and changing atmospheric conditions, summer can throw a wrench into even the best listening setups.

Whether you’re parked at a rest stop trying to catch your favorite talk show, listening in bed at home, or sitting in your garage workshop with the radio on, those familiar fades and static bursts might be showing up more often.

Here’s why that happens – and what you can do about it.

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The Voice of Baseball’s Play by Play – by Jessica Crotty

Watching youth baseball and softball has reminded me how much love there is for this game. I’ve seen the girls on my daughter’s team practicing with their parents, learning the game, and having fun. It feels great to be in person again. 

One thing I would love but have noticed isn’t present, is play-by-play for youth sports. One of the fondest memories many of you have shared is the announcers for baseball games that you’ve listened to on the radio. I started to wonder at what age play-by-play announcing starts. I know when my son played youth football, there were announcers. It also made me wonder how many announcers in the pros started out this way.

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For the Love of the Game – Play Ball

For the Love of the Game - Play Ball

There may not be another time in history where baseball has been looked forward to more than this year. When something terrible happens, many of us turn to sports to provide some level of comfort, some normalcy. I think back to the first game in New York after 9/11 and what that meant to so many. We continue to watch sports because there is no guarantee on the outcome of the game. The championship team can lose to the team with the worst record. Upsets are the drama that keep us on the edge of our seats.

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How to use the C. Crane FM Transmitter 3 for church services, parking lot concerts, or other events

We’ve had some questions around our FM Transmitter and how exactly it works, especially for use for church services, a parking lot concert, or other events. Below we’re going to give you some ideas on how it might work for you. Scroll to the bottom of the blog post if you’d like to watch a video detailing the information below.

A couple of things to keep in mind, FM is line of sight, if you have walls or obstructions, it will limit the reception. If you live in a populous area with a lot of FM stations, this solution may not work well for you because there are no vacant frequencies or too much interference.

Our FM Transmitter 3 includes a 1/8″ stereo jack and an RCA to stereo female cable that allows you to plug into the line out or headphone jack of any device that you want to transmit audio from.

The transmitter doesn’t “care” what the source of the audio signal is, it just uses the FM frequency band to send that signal to other devices on that same frequency. It will accept a source of audio from about any line-out or headphone jack.

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Podcast Friday

What we’re listening to — well this time it’s not actually a show, it’s a tool to help you find shows to listen to

Listen Notes

The Best Podcast Search EngineTM. It’s like Google, but for podcasts.

This is THE BEST place to find any kind of podcast you want to listen to. No more scrolling through the internet trying to find something new or trying to navigate multiple apps an platforms to listen to a show or host.

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Why AM Listening is Better at Night

If you listen to AM radio stations at night that are just impossible to pick up during the day, chances are you’re benefiting from sky-wave propagation. Propagation is just the technical word for how radio signals travel through the air. Sky-wave propagation is the specific name given to radio waves that travel through the sky. Sky-wave propagation takes place between sunset and sunrise. It’s the flip side to the ground wave propagation used to transmit during the day. Continue Reading

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