The rain and wind were pounding the ocean beach this morning but a ruggedly-built 7.5" loopstick CC Skywave SSB model once again provided all the sunrise DXing excitement that anyone could hope for. Ocean-boosted propagation right next to the surf brought in a lot of weird stuff that normally would seem unlikely on a hand-held portable.
531-6DL was probably the star of the session, shutting down the usual More FM/ PI snarl from the "Mother Country" around 1625. The Kiwis were once again pounding in during most of the session, with even the extremely rare 585-Radio Ngati Porou making an appearance // 603 at 1612. With 540-2AP not yet signing on Rhema in NZ was ruling the roost, and the Kiwi Radio Sport relays on 774 and 792 were sending the Aussies to the showers. 936 was all ABC, though, with the awesome Sunset Skip signal from 936-Chinese Voice long gone. Despite repeated attempts to track down anything north of the Equator only 972-HLCA managed to show up-- and it have a pretty potent signal at 1630. Not a single Japanese, North Korean or Chinese signal, though. Go figure!
73 and Good DX,
Gary DeBock (DXing in Aitutaki, Cook Islands)
7.5" loopstick CC Skywave SSB Ultralight