We're about six weeks away from the start of Big Trip '07 airchecks here on Toppy. You want Bozeman and Helena? We've got you some Bozeman and Helena.

In the meantime, we're staying a little closer to home. This week, a few New York City IDs, including some gap-fillers, such as the first appearances of "Fresh 102.7" and the revived "K-Rock."

(And don't miss the NYC pictures over at Tower Site of the Week, either!)

Thanks Brian and the rest of the crew for welcoming me in! I figured to start things off with a wide variety of local, and not so local IDs. For locals, we present Cape Cod, New Bedford, and Providence. Included in the New Bedford section is the now dark WPEP Taunton. Some of the locals come from my friend Rick Cabral, one of the other guys involved with the website I’m the webmaster of. Rick will be providing me with a good number of additional IDs in the coming weeks.

The rest were recorded on the road to and from the Dayton Hamvention back in May 2006. You’ll hear from Bridgeport, Monmouth-Ocean, Harrisburg, Altoona, Johnstown, Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Columbus, Dayton, as well as new markets Hagerstown, Bedford (PA), Cambridge (OH), and Richmond (IN). I’m planning on taking another trip out there this year, so stay tuned.

Next week, I'll start the stuff that I've been breathlessly teasing over the past few weeks, but before that, how 'bout one last Swiffer through the ol' Gmail box to get some newness up in here, eh?

(As if you can answer the question. I'm such a hack.)

Anyway: new Toppy market Watertown, SoDak makes its' debut this week, plus the new hotness from such wicked exotic places as Monterey, San Jose and Peoria. Thanks to Nathan Fuentes, Brent Nathaniel and Aaron Tyler.

(But, seriously, welcome aboard, Jeff!)

It's my birthday (tomorrow, anyway), and YOU get the present - a gift-wrapped box set of pretty much all the IDs there are to hear in Rockford, Illinois, a market we zipped through way back on Big Trip 2001, and then never managed to return to until the tail end of an August 2007 midwest swing. Someday I'll get back there and not have my tape run out before getting both halves of the WNIJ/WNIU call swap - and maybe I'll even manage to tape WKTA somewhere other than under the RF near field of WROK. And then there are those pesky LPFMs, too.

Anyway, that's this week's offering, and don't forget the pictures from Rockford over at Tower Site of the Week.

(Oh, and if you're looking for the perfect gift, I'll take three or four of these for the next trip!)

When a contributor has an entire month named after them around here, it seems like a good idea to actually bring them aboard in a more official role.

That's why I'm glad to announce that Jeff Lehmann is joining the Toppy Mod Squad as a co-editor. Jeff will be posting IDs on Saturdays from his extensive aircheck collection from all over the country but specifically the Northeast. Except, of course, the One True Rochester, cause Fybush will mess him up.

Jeff is a serious radio geek: he scored his amateur license at 13, is a long-time member of the WTFDA and maintains the nerepeaters.com repeaters database.

Lou, Scooter, Blaine and I are glad to welcome Jeff to our little shack, and look forward to what he'll bring to the site.

Tonight's weather forecast at the Indiana extension of the Toppy Update Center is a mix of rain, freezing rain, ice (formed, not falling from the sky), sleet, and snow. Accordingly, I have added ID's from multiple markets: Chicago (February, 2008, with Scooter), Dallas/Fort Worth (December, 2007/January, 2008), the obligatory homebase ID update, Indianapolis after getting home from Dallas, a few May, 2007 ID’s from A1A/Melbourne, Florida, an old ID from a now-jailed radio station owner in Scranton-Wilkes Barre, and South Bend, where Scooter and I continued our February, 2008 Chicago trip.

Now, back to watching the AnimatedSuperDoppler8000StormTrackerColorStormTeamStreetLevelVIPIRHD Weather Radar.

(Or: "How I Realized I Didn't Post On Friday And Thought I'd Better Actually Do Something 'Round Here")

Like a mansion in disrepair -- or my house -- it's another update in the housecleaning vein: more goodies from Toppy's Gmail box, including a pair of new markets: Midland-Odessa and St. Joe-Benton Harbor, as well as updates from Montgomery, Orlando and Wheeling.

Thanks to Toppy warriors Kevin Chase, Zack East, Bryan French, Rex Long and Rob Sobczak for today's goodies.