Where I lived in Atascadero, CA it was east and north for city lights. And to the east was on a different section of the power grid (I recall instances of seeing the east lit up but us without power, and vice-versa) Stargazing was doable but not great. The high school would sometimes have their 1500w MH ballfield lights on and those were bright and would light the place up on a rainy night for sure. I saw some good meteor showers there though (Should've tried FM DXing for freak stuff then if I'd known). If I still had that house I'd stick up an FM antenna on the roof for sure.
There's a small creek that runs through my neighborhood (we're talking the type a thing you could easily jump across) ... been plenty of times when I've seen the power off on one side of it, but not the other.
Yeah those big ballfield lights.. there's a park about a mile from me, and they're easily visible when on LOL
(the highschool here doesn't have any, but its basically right next to that park)
Looking straight up (or south or west would be like where you were in CA - 'doable but not great'.)
Seeing the stars up in the mountains is awesome, especially on the right perfectly-clear moonless night, when you can see the milky way .. its just like "wow"
no chance of ever seeing that at home.
I've got one of those TV/FM antennas in the attic (perfect place for it). Used to be allot better before TV went digital, now its not all that great (I think I had it connected to my stereo at one time, but when I changed receivers I didn't connect it to the "new" one since it doesn't have a coax antenna jack).
Same there, you'd always notice it outside. Here I hear the occasional outboard motor, 4-wheeler, or chainsaw. (On nice days is when it's the noisiest, everyone driving around doing chores and cutting firewood) But somebody here got a mini excavator so we now have the "backup sound" in town now LOL.
That couple...out of annoying nosieness or "That's really cool!"
Worst part would be firing that thing up every morning leaving for work LOL...that might make the neighbors complain; that could be an issue for someone like me who would totally keep it as an only vehicle, driving it every day LOL.
I know several mono FMs here in Alaska. Some are translators but at least one is a parent station. Case in point, KCAW 104.7 Sitka, AK. They're NPR but do a lot of music too but have a unique sound being in mono but also their range is impressive, you can hear that radio station quite a way out of town before it fades away completely.
Could a mono FM have a stereo HD setup? And can low-power translators have HD?
Yep nice days/nights (or just after it's rained) is when the traffic noise is most noticeable .lol. Then yeah you get the various tools and other 'work' noises...
I seriously doubt firing that big old truck up would be as annoying as some of those **** motorcycles.
If you had one the gas station would love you
To me mono destroys music, making it un-listenable .lol.
I think I remember reading somewhere that a HD tuner 'reads' something off the stereo signal to detect whether its there or not (I'm not sure on that though, since its been a while since I looked up how it worked, and it wouldn't make sense on the part that a station could broadcast in pure digital.
A LP-FM translator or station could theoretically do HD, but I have no idea on what the FCC regulations are for such. Even if allowed it probably wouldn't make sense to do since the HD signal would go very little distance.
I have this little portable HD tuner thing (kinda like a walkman, but radio only)... one of these days I'll have to take that thing when I'm going somewhere and see how far the HD signal goes out from the big stations here .lol. be interesting to see if it could be picked up down in the city (farther from the transmitters than I am) or how far (if any) out past the city...
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I've been watching some YouTube videos on DIY solar systems.
Kinda interesting on how its setup, I've learned a few things, but I have yet to find one on exactly what I'd like to do.
Did you also know they make Pure Sine-Wave Inverters?
There's allot of "spam" out there too
people wanting to sell fake crap. f--- that.
I also hate all those long pauses in the middle of YouTube videos where you start thinking: is it doing anything? just sitting there not even buffering?