Friends in Radioland -

In connection with my DX Ratings, I've had inquiries about where
are the most remote and the least remote sites from centers of ham
radio activity.  So with atlas and computer in hand, I tried the
more likely places, the north and south polar regions, looking for
locations with ratings below 45 dB and above 342 dB.

In the Arctic, the search was done by trial-and-error, starting
with lat/long pairs near Novaya Zemlya, changing values of the
latitude and longitude 1 degree at a time, seeking lower values
until a minimum rating was reached.  The lowest rating turned out
to be 41 dB, at Ellsmere Island (80N, 70W) in the Canadian Arctic.

In the southern hemisphere, it was necessary to explore locations
on the Antarctic Continent as no other islands were found with a
rating above 342.  After much searching, starting at Heard Island,
the trial-and-error method produced a maximum rating of 355 dB in
Wilkes Land, out in the middle of nowhere (80S, 149E).

There you have it, upper and lower limits of DX ratings.  But
to put things in perspective, my QTH in the San Juan Archipeligo
rates 76 dB while the rating is 86 dB for Martha's Vineyard in
W1-land, 104 dB for Santa Catalina Is. in W6-land and 122 dB for
Key West in W4-land.  So here in the USA, we're pretty close to
the three centers of ham radio activity, but not the closest.

73,

Bob, NM7M