Nigel Pimblett has been surfing the ionosphere since he was 13-years-old. The avid radio listener makes his home in western Canada but his hobby takes him around the globe.
Pimblett knows like Marconi knew – radio waves are absorbed in the ionosphere and then partly reflected and distributed into outer space or returned to the earth.
Pimblett contacted Ad Astra Radio this week to report he heard 98.9 KMCP this summer. “I was really surprised to hear your station on 98.9 FM, from here in Canada,” he said. “I gather this is K255DK, an FM translator for your AM station KMCP. I did manage to get a photo of my receiver’s RDS display, showing your station information, and thought I’d share with you, as you likely don’t hear from many listeners in western Canada.”
Pimblett has heard about 2,300 stations on AM so far, and about 1,900 on FM. The furthest place he’s reached on AM has been Australia, and he’s picked several stations there. The furthest he’s reached on FM was a Florida station.
Apart from radio, Pimblett’s main hobbies are researching his family’s genealogy and collecting model railroad sets.
Now retired, Pimblett worked as an engineer for a local power company in Canada for 40 years.
