[HCDX]: DX notes and Palstar R30 field test

[Mark Connelly <MarkWA1ION@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Palstar R30 field-test and a few comments on a
Wednesday night DX session:

I had a good opportunity to test the Palstar R30
last night (14 June) out at the Granite Pier
DXpedition site in Rockport, MA.  The first
foreign (non-US/Canada) signal to show, at
2345 UTC, about a half-hour before local sunset,
was Euzkadi Irratia, Vitoria, Spain on 1602 kHz.
Strong interference from Boston's WUNR-1600
was phase-nulled to a good degree with the
loop/whip cardioid array, but 1600 still produced
a substantial blob of QRM consisting of WWRL and
residual WUNR.  The Palstar with the 2.5 kHz
Collins filter had similar performance to the
Drake R8A with the 2.3 kHz L-C filter selected.
Audio from 1602 was somewhat fragmented by
the 1600 slop.  When I put the R8A on the
1.8 kHz filter and either tuned in AM mode to
the high side or listened on USB with passband
tuning optimized, I had superior 1602 audio to
what the R30 could produce.  I guess that isn't
really that surprising.  

In terms of maximum loudspeaker volume, the
audio from the R30's little speaker began to
distort / get "rattly" at a lower level than
the audio achievable from the Drake.  With
headphones, or an external speaker, this
becomes a non-issue.  In general, the R30 did
a creditable job considering it's half the price
and size of the receiver to which it was being
compared.  The R30 is certainly fine for a
casual travel radio for trips where luggage
weight must be managed carefully.  It's nice
that it can be connected to high-gain broadband
antennas and not get overloaded the way a Sony
ICF-2010 (2001D) does.

As the evening rolled along, I did most of
my DXing on the Drake, as DXing in June is
a challenge that makes you want to pull
out all the stops, including rapid access
to parallel channels.  Spain dominated
the DX in a big way from one end of the dial
to the other.  Some of the more interior and
northern Europeans made appearances after
0100 UTC.  UK-1089 and 1215, Croatia-1134,
Germany-1422, Switzerland-765, and Slovakia-
1098 were among the louder ones.  The two
strongest TA's, nearly local-like a week
before the longest day of the year, were
Canaries-621 and Spain-1044.  Morocco-612
and Algeria-549 were also big ... monster
signals indeed.  On the other hand, there
was absolutely no trace of Norway-1314.
Even when I could fight off the WLOB-1310
and CKEC-1320 slop, the only thing on 1314
was weak Spain.

Because of my correspondence with Ron Gitschier
in the Caribbean, I was hoping for some decent
signals from the south, but that area turned
out to be singularly unproductive.  Nevis-895,
often a good signal, was only copyable as a
carrier with the BFO on.  The same generally
held true for other splits like 535, 555, and
705.  Bits of audio here and there, but decidedly
substandard reception.  I found no trace of a
595 carrier (Ron had mentioned Dominica possibly
being back on that split).  The 594 Euro QRM and
splash from WEZE/VOCM-590 could have very well
obliterated whatever 595 had to offer, given the
pitiful propagation to the Caribbean and Latin
America.

A couple of odd X-band signals showed: one was
Haitian French Creole on 1620 and the other a
Spanish religious station on 1670 that mentioned
just about every South American country.  These
were probably of domestic origin, either legal
or pirate.  The signals of both of these were
good, comparable to NJ on 1660 and VA on 1650.

I ended the DX session at 0200 UTC.  Signals
from Spain were still abundant and on the
ride home the Saudi-1521 carrier fired up on
top of the wild quasi-religious political-
harangue show that WWKB was running (.. would
SOMEBODY over there at 'KB shut that junk off
and run some 1964 Joey Reynolds tapes PLEASE !)

Those of you who can attend the Friday BADX
meeting will get to see the Palstar R30 "live".

That's it for now ... 73 / good DX ... Mark

=====

Mark Connelly, WA1ION - Billerica, MA, USA
e-mail = MarkWA1ION@xxxxxxxxxx 
Homepage = http://members.aol.com/MarkWA1ION/weblink.htm 

=====    





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