gofar99 Messages: 1949 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi, Possibly several reasons. First what kind is it? How sensitive is it? I find that ones like my satellite one will drop out when the satellite is blocked from line of sight. Where I live the "look" angle for the main satellite is low on the horizon. For FM it is not as severe but often at relatively large distances from the station many radios will mute if set to stereo only. Some will switch to mono and still be able to produce music. The tech explanation of that is probably beyond your question. Sometimes both FM and satellite radios will receive a bounce signal off a building, mountain etc and have adequate signal strength to make music. Basically for both types it is line of sight though. AM stations due to various factors (mostly the way they propagate) are pretty immune to drop out. They will just fade into noise.