Try gaining some altitude, around 6-700 meters usually works for me..

That will get me killed for sure.

I am lucky to have the spare CPU cycles to just run the VLC media player in the background and load up multiple .ogg tracks before I start BS - then its just an issue of volume balancing.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions, guys.

I built a little mission where I took off from the Maykop airfield and tuned in to Radio Maykop and it worked perfectly. The other times I tried I must've been out of reach.
On a side note, I found out that AIMP2 (a Russian Winamp clone I've been using lately) has a built in MP3 to OGG converter, which I'll be using to convert some of my favorite songs for use in BS.