Y: Very fancy.
D: Best of all, the radio works, so we can still enjoy A Moment of Science. Hey, I think it's coming on now.
[SOUNDS]
Y: Hey, where'd the signal go?
D: It must be because we're driving through a tunnel. Try an FM station.
[SOUNDS]
Y: There it is!
[SOUNDS]
How come we can hear FM longer in a tunnel than AM?
D: It's because FM stations transmit at higher frequencies. They generally go from eighty-eight to one-hundred-and-eight megahertz. That's over a hundred million cycles per second.
Y: Wow! That's pretty fast.
D: As a result, a single radio wave from an FM station is only a few meters long, about the size of a car. An AM station is putting out radio waves that are hundreds of times as long!
Y: So the longer wavelengths can't make it as easily into tunnels?
D: Long wavelengths tend to be absorbed or blocked as they try to enter the smaller tunnel. The higher-energy and shorter-wavelength waves from an FM station aren't absorbed or blocked as much. Instead, they tend to bounce around and get reflected off of surfaces.
Y: Like the inside of a tunnel.
D: Yep. Of course, they only bounce so far. If the tunnel is long enough, even FM stations fade out until you come out the other end.
Y: Here we are!
