My initial impression of the band on Monday morning held up through closer inspection of my FDM-S2 recordings: it was dismal indeed. Although I'll take coastal DXing any day over inland, the "sea gain" effect still bows down to the propagation gods.
Tuesday morning showed promise from around 1400 onward, but it was mostly just whispers of NHK audio from the strongest tier 1 stations. I did notice a very weak CRI trumpet fanfare on 1017 kHz at 1500 beneath a presumed. slightly stronger JOLB Fukuoka, but that was the only non-Japanese TP I heard. The star of the morning--to save it from the trash heap--was JOAK Tokyo on 594. It persisted at a strong level, with J-pop such as this crooner from Yukari Onishi (thanks for the artist ID, Shazam app!): https://app.box.com/s/krho5he9jq3l9oyelhz2vsw1xvx5zwj5 It's tough to fault the lackluster DX when you can take a few steps outside and enjoy the sights and sounds of another kind of wave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWxkNnoFo9I During the day I experimented with a new prototype Wellbrook module that works with a connection to the core of a Ferrite Sleeve Loop antenna. It performed better than previous broadband FSL efforts, but still fell short of an inductively coupled, "one frequency at a time" FSL. The champion of broadband compact antennas remains the ALA1530LNP Imperium, in my opinion. It packs a lot of performance in a 1-meter diameter package. Like the FSL, the loop fits into locations where other antennas simply cannot (such as my cabin at Cape Lookout that's surrounded by dense brush and foliage). 73, Guy Atkins Puyallup, WA DXing from Cape Lookout State Park, OR FDM-S2 / IC-7300 / ALA1530LNP @20 ft. / 10-inch FSL / portable RXs _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list IRCA@hard-core-dx.com http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: irca@hard-core-dx.com