I love the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota not just because of the natural beauty of the lake, the great sightseeing, and the excellent hiking, but because of the FM dial.
For an FM DX’er, there’s probably not any better place in Minnesota to visit than the North Shore. The largest freshwater lake on the planet (by surface area) combines with the area’s remoteness to allow distant signals to fill the FM band on a daily basis.
I’m not talking about the kind of summertime reception that radio nerds dream about, though this is also a great place for DX’ing during a major tropospheric event. Even on a quiet late winter day, you can regularly hear stations from more than 150 miles away. (At that distance the signals are travelling through the troposphere, showing that tropo doesn’t just happen during the summer.)
Consider this past Saturday, April 1. There was still plenty of snow on the ground and the temperature was hovering around freezing. After I went on a great hike at Cascade River State Park, I parked at the wayside rest to enjoy the lake. As an excuse to spend more time there, I took note of all of the FM stations that I could hear, despite having monitored the dial here dozens of times before.
This map shows my receive location in red and the approximate locations of the 66 FM stations heard in blue.
As you can see, the lake almost acts as a huge directional antenna, allowing reception of signals from Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and the Twin Cities. But I didn’t hear any FM signals from much closer locations like Hibbing or Thunder Bay (though I have occasionally heard those stations at this location on my many visits over the last quarter-century).
If I’d spent even more time spinning the dial, I would likely have heard a station on every frequency at some point.
It’s not an abnormality — these are the normal conditions. The distant signals fade in and out, but they’ve been here every time I’ve listened for them.
DX’er Chris Kadlec has documented this far more extensively than me, with dozens of bandscans around the Great Lakes on his Coastal FM Bandscans page.
Here are some of the regular North Shore catches that were heard on April 1, as verified by the station callsign or slogan (distances are approximate from Cascade River):
97.5 KNXR (Rochester, MN) — 270 miles
Twin Cities/Shoreview FM’s — 220 miles
106.5 WYTE (Marshfield, WI) — 215 miles
104.5 WAXX (Eau Claire, WI) — 215 miles
95.5 WIFC and 101.9 WDEZ (Wausau, WI) — 195 miles
93.1 WIMK (Iron Mountain, MI) — 175 miles
92.3 WJPD-FM (Ishpeming, MI) — 160 miles