Hi, I can't compete with all of the interesting TA, TP, DU, etc., catches reported here, but I had an excellent cross-country evening. This got a little long; I'll probably write up something even longer for my blog with recordings.
(This is with a $10 RTL-SDR dongle, Ham It Up upconverter, 6-foot-diagonal 6-turn wooden-frame loop on a camera tripod, sitting on a ground-level patio with my laptop.) I did a bit of graveyard work as it was getting dark (local sunset was 5:34pm/0034UT) and managed one new catch: 1240 KFBC, Cheyenne WY, weak at 6:27pm, 700W, call (new), 617 miles This was at the end of a Denver Broncos football game that KFBC carries. After another hour of the usual frustrations of graveyarding, I ended up on 1060 with the loop aligned roughly N-S and heard the call for CKMX, "Comedy 1060" out of Calgary at. That's a frequent catch, but the first time I've actually heard the call letters, so I was able to upgrade the "Best" column in my spreadsheet from "Slogan" to "Call". Then I rotated around to WSW-ENE a few minutes later. I was barely making out a weather forecast at 7:45pm (0245UT), and was pretty sure I would get a new station if they gave a call given the orientation of the loop. But, as with most of the east coast not-quite-clear-channel-anymore frequencies, there are stations out here that I should be able to get sometimes, and most of the time the audible signal was an unknown SS music station. Thus, I was quite surprised at the call letters: 1060 KYW, Philadelphia PA, weak at 7:45pm, 50000W, call (new), 2067 miles And, I was recording! Except I wasn't, because of a software issue that I won't explain. But, I stuck with it and was finally able to get a recording of the call letters shortly after 8pm. This shatters my overland distance record by almost 500 miles (WLW - 1584 miles) and it was nice to pick up another 3-letter call. That was promising, so I went to 1020 and sure enough, after 30 minutes of effort, through presumed KTNQ and KCKN (both SS): 1020 KDKA, Pittsburgh PA, weak at 8:33pm, 50000W, call (new), 1820 miles This was probably a slightly better catch, even given the favorable nighttime patterns of KTNQ and KCKN. I've been rather disappointed at times with distant reception (or lack thereof), but this was a very encouraging night. (I didn't keep particularly good logs when I was a teen in Iowa the last time I was doing consistent DXing, but I tended to do a better job with longer distance catches. Thus, these are not my first lifetime logs of KYW and KDKA.) Brian Rachford - Prescott, AZ [email protected] http://azswdxing.wordpress.com/ _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: [email protected]
