The explanations of AM in the thread are decent but do leave out a couple of important facts that may have bearing on your reception on the way. First, radio signals reflect off the upper atmosphere as suggested, as well as clouds, but they also reflect off of obstacles and it is the interactions of all these reflections that cause the signal to crap out on you rather than a loss of signal strength. AM wavelengths are measured in meters and will carry long distances without reflecting off small obstacles (unlike FM where the signal starts to get weakened more quickly because there are many more reflections off smaller obstacles causing inteference among the reflected waves much sooner). However with large obstacles like buildings or mountains around the advantage of AM disappears and FM performs better with smaller interference areas. Your best bet is to leave your radio tuned and wait for a spot with decent reception during the early part of the game and listen to a period while taking a rest stop. The great thing about AM is that you are more likely to run into areas of constructive interference where the signal stength is actually boosted by reflections and if you stay in a 'sweet spot' you should be able to hear pretty well. Finding those sweet spots is a little hit and miss through the mountains but on the other side you should run into a few.
(wow, posted this whole thing from my BlackBerry)
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