http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_ducting#Tropospheric_ducting

Neat stuff. I once picked up a TV station from over 100 miles away on a stick antenna on my old black and white TV because of it.

The cynic in me says that both stations are run by the same company, and that the audio feeds were mixed up at the home office.

Really cheap radios can sometimes end up powering the AM and FM circuits at the same time. If you were really listening to the FM band, you may have heard E skip. E skip happens the E layer in the ionosphere charges up abnormally, and turns reflective in bands it usually just absorbs.

Brian is probably correct.

As a ham operator, I've learned that radio waves are funny things. Serious hams communicate on the internet, alerting others that a radio band is 'open', meaning that sommunication is somehow easy with far away stations.

Atmospheric effects can be pretty interesting. My rescue squad here in Virginia occasionally picks up an agency in Texas that just happens to be on the same frequency that we are.

I understand that Hams can actually talk to people on the other side of the world (literally!) when conditions are right.

Like Kentucky Packrat said, you probably experienced the results of a combination of a poorly designed radio and atmospheric effects.

I am guessing that the most likely explanation has something to do with your drinking habits. It is real easy to change bands and stations when you are trying to shut off the alarm.

AM radio (amplitude modulation) "bounces" its signal off the atmosphere. FM (frequency modulation) does not.

With a rooftop antenna wired to my very fine receiver/amplifier in Milwaukee WI, I was able to pick up KOMA, (OKC), St Louis, Cleveland, and Atlanta stations during the night-time hours. With my el-cheapo AM clock-radio and NO antenna, I can pick up Cleveland and Southern Illinois.

The Big Guy upstairs was wanting to remind you and your wife that He really does love you.

Besides God wanting to put a smile on your face, there is that atmospheric effect mentioned by dad29. I recall listening to AM radio late at night when I was 10-12 years old in Memphis, TN. Easy to pick up the Cardinals games --
down river from St. Louis (warm and fuzzy memories, early 60's). But one night I remember fiddling with the dial, just being a curious kid, and picked up a station from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Forget the freq & call sign. Just remember listening to it for an hour or so through a couple of ID checks + some music, news, etc. Never forget it.

I'm not sure about how an FM station can be heard on an AM radio, but as for the distance, there is a phenomenon that ham radio operators are very familiar with, called "atmosphere ducting." When the weather pattern is just right, a certain range of frequencies (roughly 50-200 mHz, if I remember correctly), that normally are only good for local communication, can travel hundreds of miles along paths that the weather creates in the atmosphere.

This is an entirely different phenomenon, and an entirely different range of frequencies, from that used by ham operators to talk to people on the other side of the world.

I was once entertained by Los Angeles traffic reports while driving across I-70 in east central Utah. As I recall, I could barely see the lights of another car. Traffic jams were a nightmare away.

Back when I was a dispatcher, the radios used (OK DPS)the same frequencies as Florida DPS; normally, not a problem. But in summer, if there was much sunspot activity, bounce was so bad that at times we had trouble talking to one of our units 20-30 miles out, but could hear Florida units talking; same on their end.

One day they had a unit calling for assistance, a wrecker and ambulance for a car in a canal, and his HQ could not hear him. The guy on duty in our station asked him for location , got it, got on the phone and called his HQ and relayed the message. Found out later he was about 15 miles from his station and they couldn't hear a word from him.