How To Find A Blank Radio Station

Need to observe info on anything radio related? Check out Radio-Locator. The site offers a searchable database of AM and FM radio stations around the U.South. (and the world, in fact). You tin can search by Null code (near useful) or state, or wait up specific stations by their call letters. If you search past ZIP code, you'll get a listing of all the stations that should be accessible in your area, along with distances and bespeak strengths and hyperdetailed information on the stations themselves (the owner's address and phone number, FCC license info, programming genre, transmitter location and power, coverage maps, and the like). Particularly useful are the straight links to the stations' Web sites and URLs for online streaming (if available).

Another dandy feature of the site is its ability to find unused FM frequencies in your area. For anybody who uses an FM transmitter (for instance, to broadcast an iPod or satellite radio signal to a nearby car radio that lacks an auxiliary line-in port), information technology's a great tool: merely type in your ZIP code and go the vacant frequencies in your surface area, thus giving the transmitter the clearest possible path rather than having it fight against a multimegawatt station on the aforementioned frequency. (That said, the smooth performance I've gotten from devices that utilize Bluetooth 2.0 for wireless transmission has me swearing off FM transmitters for the foreseeable hereafter.)

The only info not offered by Radio-Locator is whether a station is broadcasting in the new all-digital Hd Radio format. No worries: simply popular over to HDradio.com, which has a land-by-state list. (The normal caveat applies: unlike standard analog AM and FM, you'll need hardware that's HD Radio-compatible to hear the digital stations.)