Canadian radio in the Netherlands?

Tom: That's from CBC, but there's no way it's reaching beyond 50-70 miles or so from Ottawa on FM frequency. My guess is that it's being picked up by satellite and broadcast there locally (but why...a Canadian expat community there?). If you like that program and can ever get Ontario public TV by satellite, TVO has a great one called The Agenda...very timely topics and very smart show. And my favorite Canadian radio station is The Verge on Sirius...alternative indie...great stuff. Sorry, not Canadian, but I do spend a considerable amount of time in Toronto these days. BTW, I used to pick up a Fort Dodge, Iowa AM station south of KC a few moons ago, and I once picked up WHO AM from Des Moines in north Texas at night. WHO is a 50,000 watt channel, but that was ridiculous. So, yeah, weird things can happen, I guess.

You were probably listening to a broadcast from Canadian Forces Radio from a nearby NATO base: http://tinyurl.com/brkkdf5

OK, that sounds reasonable. Seems like a more likely explanation than a quirk of physics bouncing the signal from Canada all the way to Europe. Compared to the American and British armed forces networks, then, the Canadian version sounded quite erudite.

I don't know about modern broadcast standards and what is possible. But in 1938, a British TV signal was picked up in Riverhead, NY. Since it was totally unexpected, the startled engineers recorded the transmission on silent film, and it's the only existing record of pre-war, live British television. I can't find the full and detailed description online just now, but here's the footage on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kk0ytK_nqA

I found the details (and I mean details). It's on page 68 of this PDF; to get to it quickly, press Control-F, then search for "1938 UK to US Live Transmission" http://www.earlytelevision.org/pdf/Television_Recording_Origins.pdf.pdf

I used to listen to NPR in Sweden. It was on one of the public radio stations at certain times during the day. They also had other international broadcasts from BBC, Deutsche Welle, etc. I suspect that Michael is right about the origination of the broadcast, but who knows ... maybe the Netherlands has a public radio station that has international broadcasts.

Tom, "but all the way across the ocean seems unlikely." Actually, transmission of radio waves between continents is relatively common. AM transmissions in the high frequency (HF or short wave) bands from 5-30 MHz are used by Amateur (Ham) Radio operators on a regular basis, however propagation is subject to atmospheric conditions, sunspot cycle and a variety of other factors so it doesn't always work. Long distance transmission occurs when radio waves "bounce" off the ionosphere, either once or multiple times, and that's how they're able to travel such a long distance. At one time, I had an HF antenna installed but removed it to do some deck renovations and haven't bothered re-installing it. I often heard Hams from Europe, South America or other "distant" locations. I typically just use VHF (2 metres / 146 MHz) these days. Surprisingly, those are capable of long distance operation also, albeit using a different method. The following website explains the concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Radio_Linking_Project It's not likely that your car radio is capable of receiving HF / short wave frequencies, so the most likely explanation is the one mentioned by Michael (New Paltz). Cheers!

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