DX notes - Rowley, MA (8-9 APR)

[wa1ion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Mark Connelly )]

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Mini-DXpedition: Rowley, MA (UTC: 8-9 APR 1997)
Mark Connelly, WA1ION

I hadn't done much with wire antennas on outdoor DXpeditions 
recently, so I decided to go out to the Rowley salt marsh site
(Parker River National Wildlife Refuge) after work on Tuesday, 
8 APR.  Another objective of the trip was to view the Hale-Bopp 
comet from an area of relatively-low ambient light.  The dirt 
road out to the site was in poor shape with serious ruts and 
potholes.  I did manage to get in and out of there with no car 
damage by going at a very slow rate.  The weather conditions 
were adequate (though not truly ideal) for DXing and astronomy.  
There were fast-moving clouds with adequate breaks between them 
to afford a view of the comet: it was seen best about an hour 
after sunset.  The temperature was a bit cold by April standards 
(-3 C / +27 F), the wind was strong and gusty, and there was an 
occasional snowflake in the air.  It's probably good that I DX'ed 
with wires lying on the ground rather than with the car-roof 
mounted loop / whip arrangement.  Loops have been known to tip 
over or get blown off the roof during a strong coastal gale.  

One wire (length approximately 80 m) was run easterly along the 
dirt path from the gate towards Nelson Island.  Luckily the tide 
was not so high as to submerge the path this time around.  The
second wire, 40 m long, was run due south over some very wet 
salt marsh grass.  As expected, the two wires at a right angle
did produce usefully-different pick-up patterns.  

Conditions were typical of those noted over the last few months:
that is to say best towards the western Mediterranean, reasonable 
to the UK and other parts of western Europe, mediocre to the
Caribbean, and comparatively poor to South America.  Signals
from Spain were especially loud.  I was hoping for much more
auroral effect (and resulting Africans / Brazilians), but such
was not to be.  The Rowley site tends to be biassed more towards
Europe anyway.  Africans do a bit better in Rockport and at Tom
Beaton's house in Manchester-by-the-Sea and considerably better
at South Yarmouth on the Cape because of a bit of blockage towards
Europe at that site.  Despite ordinary conditions, the DX outing
was fun.  The new Mini-DL-2 delay-line phaser worked great.  Even
many of the New York stations could be nulled adequately to reveal
others underneath - e.g. St. Lucia heard through nulled WFAN-660.
When signal levels were low, I inserted the Mini-MWT-3 regenerative 
preselector to bring post-null DX above the Drake R8A noise floor.  
European splits next to domestics sounded pretty good just on the 
east wire by itself, but they were really cleaned up when the two 
wires were phased.  A chronological loggings list follows.  Full-
detail reports will be integrated with my "effort parallel to 
Hatteras" (loggings that I'll be doing from Cape Cod on Saturday 
the 12th).  

Rowley highlights included best-ever reception of Spain-1071
right next to strong CBA, Spain-1080 easily getting through WTIC,
strong Spain-936, St. Lucia-660, and a beautiful signal from 
Bermuda-1160 (with only a weak bit of WOBM under).  France on
1377 seems to be all-night schedule: it was often swamping St.
Pierre - 1375.  On the east wire Spain-855 had WEEI-850 beaten 
by about 10 dB !  Signals from the Iberian peninsula were THAT 
huge.  Even though I didn't get the desired DX run into deep 
Africa, the outing was still enjoyable.  Setting up a null on 
a station like WTAM-1100 gave a decent broadband west null 
cardioid all the way from 1000 to 1200 kHz.  That's the beauty 
of delay-line phasing of wire antennas (rather than tuned sources 
such as loops).  Minor resetting of knobs melted away QRM from 
WWVA-1170, WHAM-1180, and numerous other pests from the west.

CHRONOLOGICAL LOG REPORT (Rowley, MA)

* 8 APR: 2300-2359 UTC * UK-1089, Morocco-1044, Spain-999, UK-1053 
(o/Morocco/Spain), Spain-1080, Croatia/Spain-1134, Bermuda-1160,
Morocco-1233, Libya-1251, Spain-1296 (loud!), Spain-1305, 
Mauritania-1349, Holland-1395, Togo(t)-1394, Algeria-1544,
Kuwait-1548, Spain-1602, Ceuta-1584, Spain-1584, Spain-1575,
France-1377

* 9 APR: 0000-0059 UTC * Norway-1314, Spain-1287, Germany-1422,
France-1242, Spain-1224, UK-1215, Spain-1107, Spain-1098,
Spain-1071, Spain-954, Spain-918, UK o/unID-909, Nevis-895,
Algeria-891, UK / Spain-Canaries - 882, Spain-873, Egypt (o/ Spain,
others) - 864, Spain-855 (S9+40!), Italy-846, Switzerland-765,
Spain-774, Germany o/ Spain-756, Spain-Canaries o/ Netherlands-747,
Spain-738, Western Sahara-711, Spain-Canaries - 837, Spain-684, 
Netherlands-675, Portugal-666, Azores/UK-693, Azores-837    

* 9 APR: 0100-0142 UTC * Spain-657, St. Lucia-660, Spain-639,
Spain-648, Canaries-Spain - 621, Spain-603, Spain o/ Morocco-612,
Spain-585 (huge), Spain-576, Spain-558, Algeria-549, Ireland-252,
Luxembourg-234, Poland(t)-225, unID (France?) u/ CLB-216,
Germany o/ Morocco-207, UK-198, Turkey(t)-180, (182 off), France-162,
unID mess-153, Spain-531, Grenada-535, Ireland o/ Spain-567,
Spain-729, mess-783, Spain-792, Spain-936, Spain-972, Spain o/
Germany-1017, Spain-1044, Spain-1143, Spain-1152, Spain-1179,
jumble/tone - 1188