Why 90.9 MHz?

Today, I turned on the radio at 1340 UTC and there was a strong station on 90.9 MHz. It was a public radio station (NPR), but there were no hints as to its identity (no call sign, location, etc.) and it faded away after about 15 minutes.

If you have been following along lately, you may have noticed that my recent DX loggings have been on 90.9 MHz.*

Why 90.9?

Located in the midst of highest elevations in the county, there are only a handful of FM channels that are dead here during normal propagation. All suffer from splatter from strong signals on adjacent channels except for 90.9 MHz.

Adjacent to 90.9 are stations 37 and 27 miles away, so 90.9 is very clean under normal circumstances. If I hear anything on 90.9, it is likely to be something new (to me), so I sit on 90.9 rather than scan up and down the band because 90.9 is the most likely FM channel where I will hear DX.

* June 18: WHRM in Wausau, Wisconsin, 871 miles; July 15: WLFE south of Miami, Florida, 1204 miles; July 23: KUNI in Cedar Falls, Iowa, 971 miles