Yes sorry I meant McArthuer. I understand that I can pick up different control channels on different towers and that make sense about the atmospheric conditions and foilage affect, but I still can't understand how I can pick up a tower 120miles or more away but sometimes not get a good strong signal from the tower in my county.
For example today I was on a high hill (Hanley Rd.), directly above the Mansfield OSP Post 70 and I'm assuming, because I don't know the exact location, very close to the Mansfield tower and I only had 1-2to bars of signal on my BCD396xt.
You're not picking up sites that are 120 miles away; you're picking up closer sites which use the same frequencies, as I mentioned in my previous post. . .
Athens - 853.8875 (also Loudonville in Ashland County)
Wolf Creek - 853.9625 (also Clearfork in Morrow County)
As for why you can't pick up the Mansfield site very well, it's located near the prison, not at the post, and there are pretty good hills between you and the site. Try programming in all of the following sites (which are in and around Richland County):
Site 111 - Centerburg (Knox)
Site 112 - Clearfork (Morrow)
Site 115 - Brinkhaven (Knox)
Site 164 - Butler (Richland)
Site 203 - Mansfield (Richland)
Site 218 - Loudonville (Ashland)
Site 220 - Bucyrus (Crawford)
When I'm in that area I monitor those sites and it works quite well; you're already hearing at least two or three of those.