What Can You Hear From the Top of a Tower? RW rip!!!

[ThaDood]

https://www.radioworld.com/tech-and-gear/nicks-signal-spot/what-can-you-hear-from-the-top-of-a-tower   Whelp, the closest that I could say that is bringing an AM / FM Walkman up into the Toronto CN Tower. What did I get??? RF overload from 102.1FM CFNY and the then 107.1FM CLIQ, (Q107), and whatever other stations were up there. Well, I was able to see the CFNY Auxiliary Studio there at least. Better luck, a decade later, being up on Corning, NY's, Quackenbush Hill, plugging-in my Standard C228A HT to a tower mounted Hygain Co-linear 2M antenna and with just 5W FM Simplex, making a contact to a station in Maryland during a mid-90's ARRL VHF Sweepsteaks. Thought that to be cool.
BTW, not FM, but setting up the I Am Radio transmitter and Antenna Tuning Unit, (ATU), I hooked-up the coax of that to the AM terminals of a late 1970's Realistic Stereo Receiver. The 'Q' of this ATU was very narrow, but normally 1600AM, from 20-some-miles-away in Milton, WV, I can receive, but not strong here. However, on the ATU, it pegged the receiver's meter. The ATU was tuned for 1620kHz. Still, neat to try.

[ThaDood]

Did I ever tell the story that, not with FM, but on AM MW, while setting up the Radio Systems: I Am Radio ATU Unit and rod antenna, I put the coax connection to the terminals of a 1979 Realistic stereo receiver? Yep, 15 years ago I did a 'what if???' doing that. The ATU's circuit is indeed very High 'Q' and narrow. However, I did see this. [radio-locator.com] WZZW 1600AM from Milton, WV. Here, it's not a really strong signal on portables, but on the Eton E-10 portable, it may give a 3 outta' 5 bars in signal strength. With the AM1620's ATU, to the Realistic receiver, it pegged the meter on it. So, even just -20kHz down from the 1620kHz resonance, it still did that. Nothing really anywhere else on the AM Band, and that was kind of expected. So, makes me wonder if anyone has put a decent AM receiver to a commercial AM broadcasting tower? I have heard of HAM's using one for the 160M Amateur Radio Band, and getting great results there. Would be neat to try, but as with a commercial FM installation, it would have to be a location out in the middle of nowhere.
UPDATE 3/3/2026: Did I ever tell the story of when I shunt-fed to a 50ft tower in WNY in 2007? The rig was a new Yaesu FT-857D, and even with that rig, MW was unreal from the shunt-feed. The NYC big-3, (660AM, 770AM, and 880AM.), were all S9 in middle of the day, being 300 miles West of NYC. Toronto, Hamilton, many Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Elmira / Corning, AM stations were like locals. The one station that could have overloaded the receive is 790AM WLSV, at around 4 miles away then. I didn't have a lot of time to do this, but what a neat test to do, and all on a marine battery, so no power line noise what so ever. BTW, shunt-feeding that tower allowed for tune-up, with an MFJ-941D tuner, on 160M, 75M, 60M, and 40M. Not a super signal to transmit with, at less-than 100W, but I was able to work anyone I heard from like S9 and above.