As we continue to add IDs from Boise, Idaho to the collection (and to add pictures of Boise tower sites to Tower Site of the Week), we also carry on with our ongoing series that takes you behind the scenes of one of our Big Trips.
In this week’s installment, we’ve done all our preparations, and with a big sheaf of maps and phone numbers in hand, we’re ready to head off and actually experience the intensity of a Big Trip in progress.
If we’ve done all our preparations correctly, the Big Trip itself proceeds almost like clockwork – we already know pretty much where we’re going and when we’ll be there, and even what we’ll be airchecking at any given hour. (I make a list for myself showing needed IDs arranged by location. This usually works well, though there are occasional spots – La Grande, Oregon on the last trip was one of them – where signals don’t go quite where I thought they would and I miss an ID or two as a result.)
The actual ID recording, at least for me, is still done on cassette. This is a sore spot – indeed, I’m smarting right now about accidentally flipping a tape once too often and recording over some IDs on the trip to Baltimore and Washington that I just got back from Monday night. Trouble is, nobody’s yet made the digital equivalent of the aging Sony recorders that accompany me on all my travels. I briefly tried the Grundig G4 World Recorder last month, but it can record off the radio at only one bitrate, barely above cellphone-level. I’m hearing the Kaito KA1121 is another possibility, but have yet to order one.
Next week – what can go wrong, and what happens after the trip. (And more Boise IDs, too.)
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