[IRCA] Cape Lookout Oregon non-DX Overview - Oct. 31-Nov. 2

[Guy Atkins <dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

âMy apologies for the delay in this brief report, but I âinitially thought
it wouldn't be worth checking in with comments. However, in light of the
near-daily bemoaning of poor DX conditions at the end of October, this may
be of interest to some.

Dave Aichelman of Grants Pass, Oregon joined me Sunday, October 30th for
three nights DXing from a cabin at Cape Lookout State Park, Oregon. We
spent a lot of time experimenting with phased 1-meter Wellbrook loops and
17-foot verticals, both passive and amplified. We also did some casual
comparisons of an FSL antenna and Quantum Loops (two different ferrite head
sizes).

Unfortunately my main laptop crashed early on (appears to be motherboard or
CPU failure) and I had to operate the FDM-S2 on a small Asus T100TA hybrid
(tablet/laptop). As Chuck Hutton has mentioned, these Atom CPU powered
computers can run some SDRs very well; still, I had power issues with an
external HD hooked to the Asus. In a pinch I used a fast USB flash drive
which worked the best for WAV audio recording without stuttering. Various
other technical glitches created a near-perfect storm of equipment problems
to a degree I haven't seen in ~15 years of DXpeditions!

Sterling DX wasn't to make up for technical woes however. The morning of
October 31 had minimal TPs, mostly weak to fair audio from the top tier NHK
Japanese stations were found up until sunrise. Tonga and Tahiti were
present too, fair to good at times. Post-sunrise there was a nice little DU
opening as reception flip-flopped suddenly from Japan/Korea to Australia.
774 and 702 were the strongest DUs.

Halloween evening was interesting on shortwave with a number of pirate
broadcasters heard.

The morning of Nov. 1 was similar to the previous day, but with my
technical issues I wasn't able to make a fair assessment. I doubt I missed
any noteworthy DX though!

The final morning of the 2nd was interesting in that TPs and DUs were
mixing on a handful of channels, post-sunrise. All signals seemed to be the
commonly heard outlets.

The only way to go from this DXpedition is upwards, so hopefully my return
to the Oregon coast in 10 days will turn out better.

Guy Atkins
Puyallup, WA
DXing from Cape Lookout State Park, OR
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