Is it true or false that radio reception quality depends on the amount of listeners in a geographic location?

Question

My boss claimed that the radio reception is poor during rush hour when everyone is listening while in close proximity to each other. I said that radio waves go in all directions and most are wasted, and that the radio wave you get is not the same as the one other people get. I think the poor reception may be interference from all the metal of nearby cars. Who is right? Answers with reference please or background on the subject please, not opinions.

Answer 1

If your boss is a good one, and you present him with facts and principles that you understand, his respect for you should increase. For other bosses, consider referring to rule #1.

If everyone around you is listening with a communications receiver with a tuned RF front end, they will actually absorb less of the signal to which they are listening. But that's very unlikely, so for any standard broadcast receiver you're likely to see, the signal absorbed through the antenna is independent of where the receiver is tuned.

The amount of signal absorbed by car antennas is a tiny fraction of that absorbed by everything else.

Again, for commercial broadcast radio, the signals are so strong that no absorption will be noticeable. Multipath interference is influenced by hills and large buildings, not cars, which are small relative to the signal wavelengths.

Few modern cars generate noticeable ignition noise. And of course, no diesel engines.

I hope your boss is pulling your leg, or just wants you to think.

Answer 2

My opinion is that you should not argue with your boss until you get the offer for your next job. Change the subject and don't tell him he is an idiot until you are walking out the door.

The fact that your boss is an idiot is not a matter of opinion, but scientific fact.

Of course radio receivers do not absorb radio waves in a way that would cause them to "steal" radio waves from other receivers. A receiving antenna is "excited" or "energized" by all the waves that pass by, and the receiving circuit is designed to select waves in a certain frequency notch and amplify the waves. This does not reduce the strength of the wave in the air, which simply passes by and continues.

Hard to say what causes your rush hour effect. Do you go through a cluster of tall buildings? Is there a mountain that passes between you and the transmitter? Lots of big trucks? Have you tried tuning to other stations to see if they are all attenuated?

As for references, you are talking about pretty basic physics, under the heading "electricity and magnetism."

Try searching on "electromagnetic wave propagation." The Wikipedia article is pretty good. Also try any textbook in general physics, or the Encyclopedia Britannica. The most readable source would be the Radio Amateur's Handbook, which explains all aspects of radio waves in simple terms. It is published by ARRL, the American Radio Relay League. Last time I checked, they still had a web site. You may still find the handbook in your public library.

Answer 3

Your boss is incorrect, but you're not entirely right.

Radio reception quality depends on the broadcast power of the transmitted signal, major (mountains) and minor (power lines and radio towers) interferences, and the quality of your reciever. The number of recievers in a particular area doesn't have any effect on the quality of the signal you pick up; radio waves do move in all directions and mostly hit things that aren't recievers, but they reflect off most of them. You're getting the same major waves as everyone else (the same programme), but you may pick up static that someone half a mile down the interstate may not. So you're partially correct. The interference is not so much from the metal of all the cars as it is the pits that it creates. Think of cars on the freeway as carpet fibres on the weave of a rug. Just as the sound waves get trapped between the fibres and are either absorbed or so diminished that they're imperceptable, the same applies to radio waves between the cars. You're about 80% correct. I hope that helps.

Answer 4

Your boss's claim is based on the phenomenon called multipath distortion. google search on "multipath distortion"
i just did and here's a sample explanation (i'm too lazy to type one myself -- easier to cut and paste)

Multipath propagation occurs when radio frequency (RF) signals take different paths from a source to a destination. A part of the signal goes to the destination while another part bounces off an obstruction, then goes on to the destination. As a result, part of the signal encounters delay and travels a longer path to the destination.

Multipath distortion is a form of RF interference that occurs when a radio signal has more than one path between the receiver and the transmitter. This occurs in cells with metallic or other RF-reflective surfaces, such as furniture, walls, or coated glass.

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If there's any truth to your boss's claim, it would be because there are more objects around to create more multipath signals. but it wouldn't make any difference if you were the only one listening to the radio, or if everyone was.

Answer 5

Radio reception, in one sense, is a matter of signal to noise ratio. The higher the S/N is, the better the reception is, other things being the same. Electrical and automotive motors produce some radio noise, and that degrades the quality of the reception. The same is true of electrical appliances: some of them also produce radio noise when they operate.

Now, in the economic sense, advertizers will pay more money to get their radio ads heard where there are more people. So better and more powerful radio equipment might be bought or built in high-population areas, which would improve the "signal" part of the S/N.

Answer 6

I think you are probably right. Also, you have a better reception at night than in the mornings which has something to do with the atmosphere changes at night. I can't remember what it is called, but during the day most of the radio waves are lost in to the space but at night because of a change in the atmosphere layers, most of the waves are reflected back to the earth which enhances the reception.

Anybody knows what I'm talking about? I can only remember a diagram about it. It has been 15 years since I read about this!

Answer 7

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Answer 8

This is completely false. Every bit of metal from car wiring to lamp posts are aerials. The only difference to a real aerial is that there is a tuning circuit and amplifier attached to them.

Cars nearby may make a difference, but I'd guess that this is an imagined difference rather than a real one.

Answer 9

Poor radio reception is caused by large objects in the way. Like you, I can't see where rush hour would be a factor. The metal theory also sounds dubious, so long as the metal objects are not blocking the signal.

Answer 10

No-radio waves aren't biased to what everyone else is listening to. In my area, poor reception is due to the geography- too many hills and valleys!