FM radio in the Costa Rican boonies

[MICHEAL LEVINE]

Recently I spent 2 weeks driving around the Southern Zone, on the Costanero Sur (the coastal highway) between Uvita and Palmar. I tried to use the FM radio in my rental vehicle, but I was only able to find one usable FM station, which seemed to have local news for 50% of the time and Colombian information for the remainder of the time.

Before departing CR, I spent a night in a hotel in Ciudad Cariari, San Jose. My bedside radio in the hotel was able to receive lots of FM stations.

My question is: in the US many FM stations have repeater transmitters in outlying areas in order to reach a larger target audience. This doesn’t involve a large financial burden. Is there a reason (legal, financial, ..?) that this isn’t done in CR?

[JASON HOLLAND]

Hi Michael,

Great question. I don’t have the technology background to answer this properly, probably.

But during my trips to the Southern Zone I didn’t have any issues with picking up multiple radio stations that I recall. Perhaps the antenna in your rental car was faulty. Did you have good reception in more populated areas with the car? I know I’ve sometimes had issues with my cell phone in that area if a mountain was blocking the nearest tower – perhaps something similar was going on with the radio?

Radio is pretty popular throughout Costa Rica, so I can’t imagine the various stations wouldn’t have ways of getting their signal throughout the country. The Southern Zone is off the beaten path somewhat but not totally remote – I’d imagine they’d try to reach the audience there.

[Author]

Posts