Well, you knew it was coming, right? How could we pretend to be a blog that has “Boston” in its title without eventually mapping something about the Red Sox? The fact is, we couldn’t.
So, here it is: a map of radio broadcast signals in the Northeast for stations that cover Red Sox and Yankees games. A more thorough blog post will follow. But for now, check out the Boston Sunday Globe or a slightly higher resolution version here.
Go Sox.
Excellent map, thanks for compiling it! Not to get greedy, but any chance of some manner of interactive map that allows for finding the nearest broadcast from where you are in your vacation drive? (Someone surely could market a smart phone application for this purpose–maybe one already exists?) Or, short of that, access to tabulated raw data? Or a key for identifying where to find the different stations on the dial? It’s harder to get data this thorough from redsox.com that I would have thought. Anyway, thanks again!
You are exactly right. It is extremely difficult to get the data on current radio stations. WEEI has a list, as do Wikipedia (right…) and others. But these tend to be out of date; some even include stations that either don’t exist any more or have yet to broadcast their first game. So, we went to the horse’s mouth: the media offices for both teams. At the beginning of each season, there is a semi-official list of stations that broadcast games located in each team’s media packets. This is where we got our list.
Interactive map, eh? I don’t think that’s getting too greedy. It’s definitely something I’ve needed while driving around New England in the summer. I don’t want to make any false promises, but we have definitely been toying around with this idea.
Excellent! Will stay tuned, so to speak, with much anticipation, for use on my next Albany-to-Harwichport round trip with a car-full of beach toys and chattering kids. And thanks for the media relations dept. tip.
Beautiful stuff, Tim! Looks like you took the antenna type into account, too. Is that a bi-directional antenna I see to the SW of the N in New York?
There are so many other variables that affect reception I decided to steer clear of suggesting how big the coverage area would be on The NPR Map. But it’s much more interesting this way.
Thanks, Martin! This map was a real conceptual and graphical challenge. You are right, there are seemingly infinite variables that go into reception and broadcast area (ionospheric conditions, ground water, height of antenna, weather, &c… and that’s to say nothing of the radio or the radio waves themselves, which also vary wildly). Still, I think people want to see a “best guess”. These areas, from the FCC (I tried and failed to render the contours myself using various algorithms), are fairly conservative. I’ve listened to Red Sox games as far away as Northern Nova Scotia. All you need are the perfect conditions, right? Perhaps you could catch a Red Sox game one of these days? Ha… probably not, eh?