[IRCA] A minor milestone

[Brian Rachford <azswdxing@xxxxxxxxx>]

I did a fair bit of DXing of various bands and media back in high school in
Iowa in the 80s, and always kept my ear to the sky, so to speak, while
living in various places as an adult.  Coming back seriously to DXing this
summer, I was originally focused on shortwave, but quickly realized that
you never forget how to fall off a bicycle, and migrated down to AM BCB.
My first official logging at my present location was on August 16th (a
local graveyarder signing off just after midnight), and this evening I
logged my 300th station at this location, using my 6-foot-diagonal tuned
loop and RTL-SDR dongle with upconverter:
1080 KSCO, Santa Cruz CA, weak at 6:23pm, 5000W, call (new), 559 miles

(I even kept going after that, logging Mexican XESW as noted in another
thread tonight.)

The following stats do not include a few oddities like a station or two
that I've picked up on my car radio in town, but not logged at home.  Also,
I've heard Radio Rebelde on 670 and 1180, but those have transmitters all
over Cuba, so I'm not sure how I want to log that.  I'm only counting the
two Cubans on 530 in my totals.

US - 239 (24 states), Mexico - 51 (9 states), Canada - 8 (3 provinces),
Cuba - 2

CA - 59, AZ - 47 (out of 72 total), CO - 25, UT - 23, TX - 18
NM - 9, ID - 8, WA - 7, NV - 6, WY - 5
KS,MT,OK - 4
IA,IL,LA,MN,MO,ND,NE,OR,PA - 2
OH,TN - 1
Baja California,Chihuahua - 17
Sinaloa,Sonora - 6

Distance (miles):
2000+ - 2
1500-1999 - 4
1000-1499 - 27
750-999 - 29
600-749 - 24
500-599 - 47
400-499 - 34
300-399 - 43
200-299 - 38
100-199 - 25
50-99 - 21 (out of 25)
0-49 - 6 (out of 6)

Nearest miss: 600 KVNA, Flagstaff AZ (65 mi; I've done only a little
daytime DXing)
Most distant: 530 Radio Rebelbe, Guantanamo CU (2478 mi)
Most distant overland: 1060 KYW Philadelphia PA (2067 mi)
Most distant graveyarder: 1240 KFBC Cheyenne WY (617 mi)

These stats do not include a few oddities like a station or two that I've
picked up on my car radio in town, but not logged at home.  Also, I've
heard Radio Rebelde on 670 and 1180, but those have transmitters all over
Cuba, so I'm not sure how I want to log that.

I still have some relatively nearby stations to catch, and lot of
"mid-range" stuff, but the lower density of stations out here (except parts
of California) compared to the eastern US works against large domestic
totals.  Of course, having fewer nearby blowtorches does keep more
frequencies in play without using phasers and such.  (That's coming at some
point, though!)

Brian Rachford - Prescott, AZ
azswdxing@xxxxxxxxx
http://azswdxing.wordpress.com/
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