[IRCA] Miscou Island Prelim DX Report - Long

[Brent Taylor <btaylor@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I just returned from my brief two-day portion of the Miscou Island, New 
Brunswick DX-pedition.  This is the fifth annual event, and four AM 
DXers were present over the weekend.  Geoff Rivett and I returned home 
today to our homes in New Brunswick.  Niel Wolfish and Ken Alexander 
each took a week of vacation and remain on the Island until Friday, 
September 30th.  They will report and file their logs when they fly back 
to Ontario next weekend.

Location: Miscou Island on the northern tip of New Brunswick province, 
in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 47°59'40"N, 64°32'43"W.  (If you want to 
fly there with Google Earth I'll email you the .kmz file as an attachment).

Antennas: Two Beverages, and one EWE

BEV1:    As a hedge against an active Sun wiping out TA DX for all or 
part of the week, we deployed our longest Beverage along a NNW-SSE 
axis.  As there is little to our north to cause QRM from southern 
stations, we decided not to bother terminating this Beverage.  The 
distance straight-line distance from feedpoint to far end was 1836 
feet.  The actual length of the wire, allowing for sand dune detours, we 
closer to 2000 feet.

BEV2:   Our other Beverage was strung at a bearing of exactly 90 degrees 
true, and therefore was aimed directly at Tunisia, central Africa and 
Madagascar.  We terminated this Beverage to reduce QRM from stations to 
our west (which was a stroke of non-genius on my part...see below!).

EWE:   Our third antenna was a EWE, which Ken constructed and brought 
with him on his flight, made of aluminium poles at each end, at a length 
of 9 feet each, joined by 16 ga jacketed hookup wire - separated from 
ground by wooden dowels of a few feet in length.  The null end of the 
EWE was terminated with a variable resistor - which was pre-configured 
after computer modeling to be just over 1400 Ohms.  We decided to not 
fiddle with it on the first night.  This turned out to be our BEST 
antenna, and we were astounded with its quietude, while still delivering 
decent RF levels in to our listening post.  It was oriented to try to 
null local pest CJVA-810 (at a bearing of 233-degrees), and did a fairly 
good job.  The EWE worked so well, when Geoff and I left this morning 
the remaining two DXers on Miscou were considering rolling up the 
90-degree Beverage altogether, or re-deploying it in another direction.

Receiving Equipment: Three Wellbrook active multicouplers - one for each 
antenna - each feeding four receivers.  Each listener could switch 
between and combine any two of the three outdoor antennas, and we all 
had Quantum Phasers for peaking and nulling.  Geoff also had a Quantum 
QX Pro loop.  Ken and Niel each brought their AOR-7030s, Geoff had his 
Drake R8, and I had my Icom R-75 with Kiwa mods.  We also had an 
assortment of portable radios (most of the Sony line from the last 25 
years, as it turned out <G>).

DX - Night/Day One/Two (of seven)

We all arrived late on Friday evening, well after sunset, so there was 
no time to string antennas.  We socialized for several hours over 
several of New Brunswick's finest Beverages.....not the antenna 
kind...caught up on recent events, and then we tuned around a bit with 
our portables.  I had a great copy on COPE Spain on 1215 (although I 
expected Virgin Radio to be better given the STI).  Other coastal 
souther Europeans were strong also.

On Saturday we busied ourselves with stringing the Beverages and 
erecting the EWE.  After that work was done it was time to configure the 
listening positions, which took over an hour.  There was about $15,000 
worth of stuff on that small cottage's wooden table by the time we were 
done, just in time for DX.

Saturday night's DX started about 1.5 hours before local sunset.  
Carriers were noted on almost all of the splits early on, with the 
strongest and earliest being 1044 SER Spain, 1422 (Algeria?p) and 1584 
SER Spain.  Best early audio was 1296 COPE Valencia with a soccer game 
(futbol, surprise!).  By local twilight practically all of the TA splits 
were lit up nicely, with the usual stuff reported regularly by Mark, 
Marc, Chris, and Bruce from the East Coast of New England.

Our biggest mystery started at 2157Z, and continued for almost 15 
minutes on 1224.  It was a hit parade of pop music, including great copy 
on Tom Jones' "Kiss," followed by "I'm a Believer" by Smashmouth.  Never 
did get an ID despite lingering for all that time.  We would like to 
hear from someone across the Pond who can fill us in on the formats of 
the stations found on 1224.  Of course, we are hoping it was Israel.  By 
2213 the usual COPE was back up, with a full ID and taking a phone call 
from a listener.  We moved on...

Spain on 684 was absolutely dominating by 2215.  It was loud and 
virtually interference-free, despite being sanwiched between Montreal 
and Boston/Halifax.

BBC Radio 5 on 693 was armchair at 2217, with an interview.  It was // 
909.  Talksport 1089 was also loud, with a live phone interview of an 
American named Brian about the effects of Hurricane Rita.

We think we heard Guinea on 1295 at about 2306Z.  It had traditional 
music very similar to what we have all heard regularly from Nouakchott, 
Mauritania on MW and SW (at least, before the coup...).  There were 
breaks with a man talking, and none of us could identify the language.

Our next mystery came just after 0100Z Sunday, on 1350 KHz (after some 
pretty nifty phasing).  Clear, loud, Arab-style music which persisted 
for several minutes.  None of our listed stations seem to match that 
type of programming.  We looked on 9495 for Georgia's parallel signal 
but could not find a match.

SUNDAY MORNING:  Hello, Western Canada!

Well, the best part of my short stay on Miscou had nothing to do with 
TAs, as it turned out.  I have since seen on some of the DX lists that 
several others had a good copy of Brandon/Winnipeg on 880 on the 
weekend.  Same here!  I was the first to rise at about 0545 Miscou time, 
0445 ELT.  The rest followed within a few minutes and we were all back 
at our posts by 0500 ELT.  Snacking on cereal, drinking juice, tea and 
coffee.

With WCBS nulled/phased out, at 0501 ELT I copied a weather forecast in 
Celsius, followed by the Canadian lottery numbers from the night 
before.  Then into country music with no audible ID.  We have no doubt 
who it was, and former Winnipegger Niel Wolfish was quite confident we 
had Manitoba.

With that almost-logging, we got a little bolder and looked farther 
west.  Within a few minutes Geoff thought he heard a reference to 
Calgary on 660 with WFAN phased out.  I passed him my NRC Domestic Log 
to he could see if there was such a creature and...sure enough....there 
was CFFR listed in all its glory.  We all tuned to 660 at around 0520, 
phased, and all heard "It's My Party," "What a Wonderful World," "Black 
Magic Woman," and the dead giveaway for a Canadian, "As the Years Go 
By," by Mashmakan.  Then, the ID, "Calgary's station for good times!" 
and into Strawberry Alarm Clock's "Incense and Peppermints" @ 0529.

Thinking we could go even further, I asked Niel, "What's CKWX's 
frequency?"  He (who seems to have the Domestic Log committed to memory) 
said, "1130."  Hmm, WBBR just pounds in here, but what the heck.  I 
tuned to 1130, started switching and phasing and before long had a woman 
talking, in a newscast, about "Cloverdale," and then "boundaries."  Neil 
and I both had it by then, and after the woman announcer threw to a male 
there were frequent mentions of the "Lower Mainland," then into hockey 
scores at 0545, with the Canucks' exhibition game first - mentioning Ed 
Jovanovski, and then CFL football; followed by baseball.  Considering 
baseball is in the final throes of a pennant chase, and the NHL regular 
season has not even started yet, we were confident at that point it was 
CKWX.  Niel confirmed it when he heard, with the same voice used for the 
promos on sister station "680 News" in Toronto, many of the exact same 
phrases and styles on 1130.

Next, at 0549 EDT, we all arrived on 1140 just in time to hear, 
"Southern Alberta's community radio station, AM-1140."  Then it went 
into a C&W song.  That was CHRB in High River.  We could hear it 
dominating on 1140, with no phasing required, on all of the antennas. It 
was about half-daylight on Miscou by that point.

In less than an hour, I had heard three new provinces from New 
Brunswick, bringing me from 6 to 9.  And only my third West-Coast 
station EVER (after KFI and KNX 30 years ago).  Before it was too late I 
trolled for Saskatchewan but came up empty.  Next time...

In summary, while we all went with TA and SA DX in mind, I returned home 
very stoked about the conditions to the west.  I have regained an 
appreciation for the thrills of domestic DX.  None of us anticipated 
it.  We had, as mentioned above, terminated our East-West Beverage to 
favour Africa.  By the time I decided to leave the radio and dare to run 
the 1000-feet plus to undo the termination...it was too late, and too 
light.  Interestingly, the conditions to Western Canada did not 
translate into Western USA enhancement.  No KSL, KGO, or anything else 
one might expect.  Nothing from WOAI or WBAP either.  WOAI was my 
farthest-west SRS domestic two years ago from Miscou.

I'm posting this report as a narrative.  If I get time I'll actually 
submit my loggings to the appropriate editors.  Niel will undoubtedly do 
so also, and his record of Miscou will be more complete and detailed 
than mine.  I'll defer to him as the true chronicler of the 2005 Miscou 
DX-pedition.

Before I finish, I want to say how much we missed Jacques D'Avignon, 
VE3VIA, this year as he is recuperating at home.  We spoke of him often, 
and look forward to Jacques' return next year for the sixth annual 
Miscou event.

I also want to report that, after a horrendous noise level last year, we 
reported it to my local power utility, NB Power.  After some early 
frustration and some follow-ups by Jacques and me, NB Power's northern 
New Brunswick manager called me personally last week to report that 
their crews had gone to Miscou, found the problem and fixed it over the 
summer.  He wished me success and told me to call him personally if 
there were any problems with his utilitiy's lines.  The conditions were 
perfect, quiet, and free from QRM.  We are very grateful to NB Power for 
the time and expense it took to work the problem for our crew of DXers.

So, that's it!  I'm off to read/cull the 400-plus emails that have 
landed in my inbox from the plethora of DX lists that I find myself 
subscribed to as we all try to find a safe place to land.  For those of 
you who are similarly subscribed to multiple lists for the time being, I 
apologize for the many copies of this report you will receive.  I hope 
we all find an agreed-upon single home real soon!

I hope you enjoyed my little narrative, and I encourage you to stand by 
for Niel and Ken's official report from the Island, as the two full-time 
DXers continue their work tonight and through the coming week.

73

Brent Taylor, VE1JH
(back home in) Doaktown, NB, Canada

Attachment: miscou.kmz
Description: application/vnd.google-earth.kmz

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