Thoughts on big text props like radio signs - worth the filament or overrated?

I built a radio sign two seasons back, about a four footer made from coroplast and a strip of pixels behind it, so my take is that yes, people actually do tune in. I run a low power FM transmitter in my garage window and I'd guess half the cars that park out front have their radio on. Kids in the back seat singing along is the tell. The trick is the sign needs to be lit constantly during the show, not just flashed during a song intro, because people pull up mid sequence and if the frequency isn't glowing they won't bother.

I went the opposite direction after trying text props for two years. Mine was a Merry Christmas sign, maybe two feet wide, punched pegboard with bullets glued in every hole. Looked sharp standing next to it in the driveway. From the street it turned into a glowing blob because at forty feet and through a windshield, letters that small just merge together. Your 22 by 18 might have the same problem depending how far your curb sits from the yard.

What actually pulled people in for me was motion and faces, not words. I scrapped the sign and put that money into a pair of singing trees and a small star. Neighbors commented on those constantly. Nobody ever mentioned the sign when it existed. The radio side I can't argue with though, ours gets used, but mostly by repeat visitors who came back on purpose. First-timers mostly just sit with the windows cracked and watch. If you're set on keeping it, I'd sequence the text to light up in chunks, word by word or letter sweep, instead of all 147 on at once. Static glow reads as one bright rectangle from a distance. Movement is what separates letters from the rest of the display. Test it before you commit by clipping it to the fence one night and walking out to the sidewalk with your phone camera, the zoomed-out view tells you the truth faster than your eyes will.

I keep bumping on the 'half the cars have their radio on' guess. You can't really see or hear that from your yard, you're just reading kids mouthing words and calling it data. I ran a sign with a transmitter one season and watched cars pull away after thirty seconds like nothing was playing. My theory now is most people have bluetooth or a playlist going and the sign is more decoration than instruction. Still worth building if you like it, just don't expect the dial to do much. Did you ever test yours from a friend's car at the curb before committing?

Sort of related, I printed some big letters for Halloween a couple years back and learned to just sit at the curb with a thermos and watch how my own display reads. Felt silly doing it but it settled every argument I had with myself about sizing. Might be worth a test night before you commit to hanging it. Question for anyone who's downloaded the model though, my printer bed is small so I'd be doing a lot of these sections anyway. Do modular signs like this tend to show seams badly once they're lit up at night, or does the glow hide the joints enough?

For what it's worth I landed on static with mine. Printed a letter sign a couple years ago, spent way too long trying to chase text effects in the sequence, and honestly it read better just glowing steady while the stuff around it did the dancing. Text wants to be boring so the rest pops. Only thing I'd add on the print side, watch how you orient the section seams, I had visible banding across mine until I flipped them face down and glued with a flat plate on top while they cured.