[HCDX] South Shore, MA DXpedition (initial comments)

[MarkWA1ION@xxxxxxx]

On Saturday, 9 NOV, the South Shore version of a
"DX Clams" get-together in Plymouth and Duxbury, MA
was well attended.  The following DXers enjoyed
lunch at Wood's Seafood Restaurant on the Plymouth
pier: Nick Hall-Patch (VE7DXR) (all the way from BC,
Canada !), Chris Black (N1ICP), Vern Brownell
(W1VB), Ray Arruda (KB1EVX), Mark Connelly (WA1ION),
Marc DeLorenzo, and father-son team Allan Dunn
(K1UCY) and John Dunn (N1VPU).

I'd scoped out the Duxbury Beach site on the way
down and found the gate locked.  So when the group
left the restaurant at 2:15 p.m., we headed over to the
alternate Duxbury DXpedition site at nearby Powder
Point instead.  A couple of the DXers went home
but there were at least half a dozen of us at the
Powder Point site.  Boston Area DXer / NRC member
Paul McDonough joined us.  I set my car up with the
rooftop broadband loop phased against active whip,
since there wasn't much room for running out wires.

DX highlights: Strong mid-latitude Transatlantics
started with Saudi Arabia-1521 good at 3 p.m. EST
(2000 UTC).  The DX was still rolling along when I
left at 8 p.m.  Spain and North Africa, not
surprisingly, packed the loudest signals per watt
of transmitter power.  Some of the better catches
included the Irish station on 981, quite strong,
and Turkey-1062, not strong but recognizable as
Middle Eastern music.  France-1467 and Saudi Arabia-
1521 pushed the S-meter to S9+40, stations such
as Mauritania-783, Morocco-1044, and France-1206
weren't far behind.  Bigger Boston locals (590, 680,
850, 1030, 1510) run about S9+50 and the NYC skip
stations are about S9+40, so that shows how loud
some of the foreign DX was at this superb coastal
site.  Nick Hall-Patch left for his quarters at Woods
Hole Oceanographic as Saudi-1521 was reducing
WWKB to a barely-discernable background het.  I
told him that the channel sounded like that up in
"Newfie" most nights.  The Latin Americans were
not too impressive, though I did manage to pull a
nice Radio Ideal (Venezuela) ID through WBBR-1130.
Bits of Brazil were in the melange on 760 but it
was the TA's that were stealing the show.  When
I got home a bit after 9 p.m. (0200 UTC), the band
seemed more auroral: Colombia was slugging WJR-760
and Mauritania-783 appeared to be the only loud TA.
The 648 unID "fat carrier" (suspected to be Gambia)
is still being noted over Spain.  Whatever this may
be, its audio remains nearly non-existent despite
S-9 strength at times.  The Newfie guys probably
have this sussed.  Also Bruce Conti will be up in
Maine before long to take a stab at it.  

Nick Hall-Patch set up his computerized signal
strength recorder (the modern version of Gordon
Nelson's Rustrak pen chart recorder) at Woods
Hole (Falmouth, MA).  It wouldn't surprise me if
he published a nice article comparing east coast
and west coast transoceanic propagation.

I'll have a full log report out in a few days.

Chances are good that intelligence from the past
week's Cappahayden, Newfoundland effort will soon
be filtering into the DX press.  Then the Maine
BADX thing, Ray Arruda's get-together, antenna
articles, etc.: it all boils down lots of DX
activity here in the northeast this November.

73 / good DX to all ... 
Mark Connelly, WA1ION - Billerica, MA, USA

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