SATURDAY at the CRACK of DAWN:
Well, I THOUGHT that I set my alarm for 3:30AM! As I faded into
sleep on Friday evening I thought "I should check that alarm
again.... NAW, how paranoid can you get, anyway?" So I rolled over
and dropped into sleep, not realizing that I'd set the alarm time
but not pulled the plunger out! Happily, I've gotten up at first
light for so many years that I popped awake at 4:40AM (1140 UTC.) In
less that 5 minutes, I had coffee in my hand, clothes on my back and
earphones on my head! With dawn at 1215, I'd lost a good hour of
DXing, but saved the finest hour of dawn enhancement at the coast! DARN IT!!!
Still, I was very grateful to be awake at all and the conditions,
though rather mediocre again, allowed me some nice catches, most on
both my WinRadio 313e and the Ultralight E100. With only an hour, I
had no free time to experiment with other antennas or other
Ultralight radios. It was off to the races!
Both New Zealand and Australia were in and I managed to add 1035
Newstalk ZB, Wellington; 648, probably NZ's Rhema in Gisbourne and
792 4RN, Radio National Brisbane to the Ultralight log. I also added
two new countries to my Ultralight log: 1566 HLAZ, Cheju Island,
South Korea and 639 Radio Fiji 1 for a Country First. They were
running their usual Sunday choir singing hymns in Fijian. If you
haven't heard Polynesian/Melanesian choirs doing hymns, you've
missed one of life's real pleasures.... GREAT music. I just quit and
listened for more than ten minutes as the band faded out.
I heard one other NewsTalk ZB (New Plymouth on 1053) on the 313e,
but it was too weak for the E100. Also at the very bitter end, I
managed to catch KUMU, Honolulu on 1500 as it faded out (local
commercials) also too weak for the E100..
So, it was a very short and fast morning, but still great fun,
thanks to Ultralighting..... and the Fijian National Choir. Guy
Atkins and Gary DeBock are joining me after lunch today for the last
night of the DXpedition. With them arriving, I think that I'll stick
close to the motel and zap this report on Sunday, when I get home.
Tonight, I'm going to be VERY paranoid about that alarm clock, too!!!
SUNDAY, JUNE 1ST at 3:00AM
Guy Atkins and Gary DeBock+family arrived at Grayland on schedule and
we had a great chat and general get together for far too short a
time. Suddenly it was bedtime, with the alarms set for 3:00AM and
double-checked. This morning turned out to be the poorest of the
four in my estimation. There were hets all over the dial, but the
audio pretty sparse and what was there was almost always just above
threshold level.... just at Language Recognition level. Gary did
fairly well at a remote location with stand-alone ultralights and his
highly modified 2010. All of those ferrite bars and the Atkins/Bryant
computer complex just don't mix well.
Guy had his Perseus running all night... something like 8 straight
hours, recording the RF from the lower two-thirds of the band. He
DXed live over that same swath of spectrum from 3:00AM on, too. Its
going to be very interesting to find out what the Perseus + Wellbrook
heard, but we'll have to wait three weeks or so.... Guy was nice
enough to loan me the Perseus to try out this week on Orcas, so he
will start reviewing his files next weekend.
I managed one further Country First with the E100 + Wellbrook:
1017-Radio Tonga was in at a listenable level for over an hour. They
normally go off at about 1110 UTC, but Guy and I listened fairly
constantly until 1130UTC. At least part of the programming was
religious and we got treated to several more of those wonderful
Polynesian hymns by the choir. I was also able to hear 1116 4BC
Brisbane and 774-3LO Melbourne on the E100. Finally the E100 also
grabbed 675-National Radio Christchurch//567 just at the end of dawn
enhancement. The more sensitive/selective 313E managed several more
of the usual DU suspects that the little radio just could not hear
for one reason or another... All in all, though, the E100 is a
stunning little DX machine.
One of the more interesting incidents was turning past 1386 this
morning (I haven't even had a het there the other mornings) and
running across Indian/Bollywood music. It was a "pop-up"
reception... gone in 30 seconds and never returned. That was almost
surely Radio Tarana, Auckland, a station for the Indian community on
the North Island. In past years, they have been one of the better
performers from New Zealand. If memory serves, that station started
life a decade or more ago as Auckland Airport Radio, some sort of
tourist/expatriate radio. I believe that lasted a cou[le of years and
then Radio Tarana bought them out. In any case, I've seen several
notations of hets on 1386 from fellow NWers in the past couple of
weeks... I'd guess those were likely Tarana, too. Not bad for 10 kW.
Well, when things faded out, Guy helped me break down the antennas,
we got packed up and headed home (with Gary having gone back to his
warm bed, we think!)
Thanks to Ultralighting, those four days were the most fun that I've
had a Grayland in ten years, easy.... and the experience ranks right
up there with the trip to the Queen Charlotte Islands last fall. Its
just an unbelievable thrill to get a new station on that little
radio..... and when I start running out of catches with an Ultralight
+ antenna in a few years, I plan to shift over with the REAL DXers
and try to do TPs Barefoot.... The Final Frontier!
I'll produce formal loggings in the next couple of days....
WHAT FUN!
John B.
back on
Orcas Island, WA, USA
Rcvrs: WiNRADiO 313e, Eton e1, Ultralights
Antennas: Two 70' x 100' Conti Super Loops, West and Northwest
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