[HCDX] Rockport, MA "Marconi Memorial" DX outing: a first look

[MarkWA1ION@xxxxxxx]

It was cloudy, windy, and just a bit above freezing when
I got out to Rockport at 5:15 EST (2215 Z) on 12 DEC.
This wound up being a solo session: the other local DXers
must have been too busy with Christmas shopping.  High
band conditions, initially, were superior to those on
the lower end of the dial.  An interesting pattern of
reception was occurring.  The northern Europeans were
good and Caribbean / Venezuelan stations were also coming
in well at times.  Surprisingly suppressed were signals
from Spain, Morocco, and Algeria: normally the best TA's
as a group.  UK stations on 693, 882, 909, 1053, 1089,
1215, etc. came in well: especially loud were Virgin -
1215 and BBC - 693.  Radio XL Birmingham - 1296, with its
Indian programming, surfaced for a while.  Ireland - 567
was good as were the Dutch stations on 747 and 675 (which
was almost local quality).  France Bleu stations were there,
but not up to customary shore receiving site strengths.
Croatia - 1134 and Slovakia - 1098 were huge.  756 was
the best German.  Ireland's United Christian Broadcasting
station on 549 popped up to a good level: over Germany
with no sign of the usual Algerian pest.  783 seemed to
be the German instead of usual Mauritania (but too many
competing signals on that channel to be sure).  Saudi -
1521 was strong, but 1548 had a 3-station jumble instead
of typically-alone VOA Kuwait.  I heard quite a few other
TA's besides those above.  Venezuela dominated the Latin
American scene.  Domestic DX was ruled by Canadian Maritimes
stations.  I got a nice ID out of VOWR-800 and the Newfoundland
CBC stations on 600 and 640 were running an interesting feature
on Marconi that I paused on for a while.  The 1710 NYC-area
Jewish pirate was coming through with English language talk
about Chanukah.  All in all an interesting DX session, even
if conditions were actually better on some of my summer
Rockport and Cape Cod outings.  It will be interesting to
read about others' Marconi 100th anniversary loggings.  My
log report will be ready in a few days.
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