The Great ATS Radio Challenge

26 Replies

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

Here is an idea thought up by a radio pal of mine, Andy, W2SRA.

It’s an exercise to get us operating our portable mutliband radios from manufacturers such as Grundig, Sony, XHDATA, Tecsun, Sangean, and so on. If you own a digital multiband radio that has an ‘ATS’ search function, that being a function where the radio will scan the selected band and store stations to memory automatically, this challenge is designed to see what your radio can hear from your location.

Here’s your task: During daylight hours (preferably around midday or as close it to as possible) we would like you to scan the AM broadcast band, the FM broadcast band, and the shortwave band, and record how many stations your radio finds and stores to memory for each band.

Rules:

  • No external antennas! No loops. No anything.
  • For FM & SW, the whip antenna will be fully extended, and fixed vertically.
  • For AM –you will use the internal ferrite rod antenna, and do two scans. One with the radio facing  East-West, and one facing North-South. Duplicated stations between the two scans will count as one station. (i.e. 660 is received in both directions, that will count as one station reception. 770 is received in one direction but not the other, that is one station reception.)
  • Radios that use the telescopic whip antenna for AM reception will follow the same rule for FM & SW, fully extended vertically.
  • You must do this challenge from your residence! Indoors or outdoors is your preference, but it must be with 100 feet of your residence.

This is not a contest, no prizes will be awarded. This is an experiment to see how many strong signals are received in different locations around the region. You may use any radio of your choice so long as it meets the above criteria.

For even more fun, try it at roughly the same time in the same location with two or more different radios that have ATS capability. Do not, however, combine the scores from the different radios.

Report your results in the comments below.

26 thoughts on “The Great ATS Radio Challenge”

  1. LEON WEBSTER

    Here are the results of my experiments:

    Brand Model # FM AM (N/S) AM(E/W)
    Tecsun S8800 53 20 22
    Tecsun PL-330 59 17 22
    Tecsun PL-990 60 20 23 More False Positives on FM than on S8800
    Tecsun H-501 60 16 25
    Tecsun S2200 -x 60 31 24
    Sangean 909×2 36 22 22 Stations ordered by signal strength.
    AM Stations were in different order for N/S & E/W
    CCrane
    SkyWave SSB 2 21 15 15
    Qodosen DX-286 48 18 27

    Reply ↓
      1. Jock Elliott

        Leon,

        Thanks for all that hard work!

        I hope you had fun.

        It looks like the Tecsun S-2200X is pretty hot on AM. That squares up with my results.

        Cheers, Jock

        Reply ↓
  2. Marty

    This was fun and I found a few FM stations that I need to spend a bit more time listening to.

    Operating Station:
    Outdoors from Grid EL09po (Near San Antonio, TX)
    Tecsun PL-990X
    Internal Ferrite(MW) and Whip(FM/SW)
    Gain Selector set to DX

    Time:
    14:30 -14:50 Local (US Central)
    19:30 -19:50 UTC

    Station Count:
    I only counted signals that were intelligible.
    MW/AM: 29
    FM: 43
    SW: 11

    I kept a listing of the frequencies captured in a spreadsheet so I can try again at a different time and see how this varies.

    Reply ↓
  3. Peter L

    Front porch faces ~15 deg east of N (overlooking scenic Ontario Hwy 417) here in FN25sn.
    PL-606 (and left my Select-A-Tenna inside as instructed). Ran this at 1500 EDT. MW only. 3-kHz BW selected.

    N-S

    580 – CFRA Ottawa
    690 – “CKGM” Montréal
    730 – CKAC Montréal
    800 – CJAD Montréal
    1280 – CFMB Montréal

    E-W
    As above plus

    940 – CFNV Montréal (not really readable).

    Sad state of affairs for the Senior Band …

    I will repeat this if the weather stays passable (it’s 19 C today with light rain)

    Reply ↓
    1. Jock Elliott

      Peter L,

      Thanks for trying.

      I’m not familiar with the 606 . . . no FM or SW?

      I hope you had fun.

      Cheers, Jock

      Reply ↓
      1. Peter L

        Older Tecsun. *I’m* MW only; the radio works fine on LF/MF/HF/VHF … I just tend to stick to the AM band. 🙂

        And I did have fun. I need to get in the habit of doing this regularly and logging the results …

        Reply ↓
        1. Jock Elliott

          Peter,

          ” I need to get in the habit of doing this regularly and logging the results”

          I look forward to that.

          Cheers, Jock

          Reply ↓
  4. Sandip Nambiar

    Hello.

    I’ve got the following using a C Crane Skywave SSB from Dublin, Ireland.

    – AM (N-S): UTC 11:07 >>> 1 station
    – FM: UTC 11:13 >>> 23 stations with 4 duplicates
    – SW: UTC 11:18 >>> 0 stations
    – AM (E-W): UTC 11:33 >>> 1 station

    The low number of AM stations was a surprise because I was expecting few more from UK.

    The SW scan could be attributed to the time of day, location and the wonderful RF attenuating double glazed windows ?

    72,
    Sandip Nambiar EI7IJB

    Reply ↓
    2. Jock Elliott

      Sandip,

      Thanks for doing that. I hope you had fun.

      Perhaps trying at different times of day would help.

      Cheers, Jock

      Reply ↓
  5. Art Jackson

    I have 2 makes that do ATS. One is a XHData D-808, the other an Eton Executive Satellit that ATS is for FMBC only.
    My results:
    Back Patio that faces ESE about 50 miles SW from the center of the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex at 12:30 PM CDT.
    XHData D-808 ATS Scan 1:
    MW – 20
    FM – 27
    SW – 5
    I didn’t like the results. I found SW to be a bit noisy, so I moved to the middle of my backyard about 17 feet from the house (2 year old 2010 Square Foot high roofed).
    ATS Scan 2:
    MW – 22
    FM – 42
    SW – 7
    Much better. No doubt this spring and summer during periods of Tropo and Sporadic Es, DX from the back patio to null out DFW stations.

    Eton Executive Satellit FM ATS Scan in the middle of the backyard:
    FM – 33
    Somewhat surprised it wasn’t as good. I find the RDS capture to be better on that radio compared to the XHData D-808. Also it picked up (ATS) stronger stations at 0.1 MHz above.

    It was a fun exercise. I plan to compare my plethora of Medium Wave loops (7 of them and a supercharged D-808) in the near future with a D-808. Maybe I will be allowed to post those results here. If not, I have a Blog that I will post them to.
    73 Art Jackson K7DWI/5

    Reply ↓
    1. Jock Elliott

      Art,

      Thanks for doing that.

      I would be happy to see the results of your multi-scan here, if you are willing.

      I hope you had fun!

      Cheers, Jock

      Reply ↓
    2. Art Jackson

      I decided to do an ATS scan from the front yard this morning April 21 at 10 AM CDT. It is a more open area than the backyard. A little Tropo Scattering this morning for the FM Band.
      XHData D-808
      MW – 25
      FM – 58
      SW – 5
      Much better although disappointed with Shortwave results ¯\_(?)_/¯
      73 Art K7DWI/5

      Reply ↓
  6. Art Jackson

    Question.
    Your radio scans and stops but does not have ATS.
    Yes or no. I do have both kinds. Just curious.
    I do this with 2 radio at least.
    Thanks. Art

    Reply ↓
  7. Jock Elliott

    My results:

    When: Saturday, April 12, 2025, 1330-1400Z

    Where: Brunswick, NY, USA

    Qodosen DX-286
    MW (E/W+N/S) – 21
    FM – 49
    SW – 5 (band conditions were horrible)

    Tecsun S-2200S
    MW – 23
    FM – 65
    SW – 9 (just minutes later, band conditions still horrible)

    Cheers, Jock

    Reply ↓
  8. Barry

    How: Tecsun PL-368
    Where: JO89wj Stockholm, SE
    When: 2025-04-17T12:50:00+02:00
    What MW N/S 0 stations
    MW E/W 0 stations
    SW 12 stations
    FM 51 stations

    Notes:
    i) Clipping the Tecsun’s antenna to my longwire/randomwire found only 5 more SW stations.
    ii) Using the external AM antenna supplied with the receiver gave no more MW stations.
    ii) according to https://solar.w5mmw.net/ there was no geomagnetic storm (there was last night though) and the noise floor was low (S1-S2).

    Reply ↓
  9. Kitty Tsaikovsky

    Good idea. but do have participants review the saved frequencies as some of them are just interference noises ,adjacent channels and not ‘real’ stations.

    Reply ↓
  10. Peter L

    What a fun idea. Other than e-skip, I’m not a huge fan of FM (I mean, radio is radio …) but I do like me some MW … The N-S then E-W idea is great … hmmm. Can’t get to it today but if I am not up at the repeater site tomorrow, then I’ll do it, otherwise Friday. The PL-606 needs work anyway …

    Great idea, Jock!

    Reply ↓
  12. LEON WEBSTER

    Jock, This seems like a fine idea and a wonderful way to spend an afternoon or two.

    But, I do have a question. My radios (does anyone have just one radio?) often find phantom stations when using ATS. By that I mean the ATS says there is a signal there, but when I try to listen to the signal my ears fail to detect anything. I presume we shouldn’t count these phantoms as being found, but want to make sure.

    Thanks for the great idea

    Reply ↓
    1. Jock Elliott

      Leon,

      I would say that if your radio detects it during an ATS scan, count it, and don;t worry about phantoms.

      Sometimes if you move the radio around, you’ll find that the phantom is actually a discernible signal . . . at least I have on occasion.

      Cheers, Jock

      Reply ↓

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