In the world of radio broadcasting its sometimes hard to pin down exactly who is tuning in and where they’re listening from. Sometimes it is household radios providing the backdrop to daily chores, the car stereo playing the soundtrack to a commute, or an online stream helping to move along a busy workday – but one thing is certain the world is listening.

We do have some helpful tools at our disposal like broadcast maps and estimated signal ranges that can help stations just like your local WGOH and WUGO bands know roughly how far we reach, but sometimes something comes along that defies all the odds and reminds us that even in this day and age radio is heard everywhere.

During the early morning hours of Thursday, March 13th we received an email from who is believed to be our most distant listener tuning in from more than 4,000 miles away! After reaching out and touching base with the sender he gave us permission to post the email, so here it is in the entirety!

“Hello!

I have a neat surprise for you – I have heard your station WGOH here in Finland, 4,233 miles from Grayson! I’d greatly appreciate receiving your confirmation of my reception of your station.

A bit about myself: I’m 59 years old, and we are colleagues in broadcasting – I work as foreign news journalist for the Finnish Broadcasting Company, reporting both on radio and TV.

You may wonder, how I could possibly hear your station this far. It really wasn’t an everyday event, but rather a rare combination of luck, experience and effort. For the past 45 years, DXing, trying to catch far-away radio stations, has been my favorite hobby. My equipment consists of a “Perseus” type communications receiver and a 3,000-ft-long wire antenna pointing at your direction.

Conditions for AM listening are ideal up in Finland’s northern region Lapland, far above the Arctic Circle, because there is ample space for long antennas, and hardly any man-made electrical noise or interference. I have a tiny cabin up there with other radio hobbyists. The weather outside can be extremely cold, but this is the best place for listening to AM radio signals from around the world.

I heard your station on March 12, 2025, at 7:16 PM Eastern daylight time on the frequency of 1370 kHz AM. The reception quality was actually relatively good, but only for a few minutes. I was lucky to hear these two station identifications by a male voice:
7:16 “100.9 1370 WGOH”
7:22 “The home for East Carter Athletics, the Tradition(?), WGOH”

I am also enclosing a short recording of these announcements. They are a bit noisy, but still pretty strong, considering the amazing distance!

Hearing your station was such an astonishing feat for me that I would greatly appreciate your reply to confirm that it was indeed your station which I managed to pick up.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon,

Mika Makelainen”

As our dedicated listeners will know, those are indeed our legal identifications and liners that play over on WGOH 1370AM & 100.9FM, and despite the staggering distance Mr. Makelainen’s specialized equipment still managed to grab those AM bands even if just for a moment. This was a great surprise for us and makes us wonder who else in the past has managed to hear a little bit of The Tradition and where they may have been?

We appreciate all of our listeners – especially the great dedicated local fanbase we have earned over our 60+ years in operation – and wanted to take this moment to spotlight who just may be the further listeners that WGOH has ever had. We like to tell you to take Go Radio with you where you go and now we can officially add Finland to that list.