Re: [IRCA] Norfolk Island in the 1566 Maze?

[Gary DeBock <d1028gary@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Mark,

<<< Gary, how many signals could be heard at high noon local (i.e. groundwave) with the most sensitivity you could throw at it?

In Newfoundland, the DXpedition group managed NYC, Bermuda, and Azores at noon: all in excess of 1000 miles / 1600 km. When some skip got in the mix (NOV/DEC), the former Norway blaster (1314) and UK (1215) were basically 'round-the-clock signals.
Back when Turks and Caicos 530 was big power, it could be heard here on Cape Cod all day at about 1400 miles / 2000 km.

Mark Connelly, WA1ION
South Yarmouth, MA >>>

I'm afraid that the high noon situation in the Pacific is a little different, Mark. The distances are greater, and there was an added distraction during this trip that made daytime DXing somewhat awkward to attempt.

630-Radio Cook Islands in Rarotonga (2.5 kW) was 164 miles to the south, and of course it was easy to receive it an S7 level throughout the daytime hours. The next closest MW station was 540-2AP in Apia, Western Samoa (5 kW) 866 miles to the west, which failed to manage even a carrier until just before local sunset. After that it was 846-Kiribati in Christmas Island (10 kW) at 1443 miles to the north, which was also a no-show in the daytime, without even a carrier until sunset was approaching. I think that your Atlantic-area daytime DX distances were probably noted during somewhat favorable autumn or winter propagation, but currently the South Pacific is in somewhat of a transition period between summer and autumn, and conditions didn't seem to be optimal for long range daytime DX.

The other distraction that I mentioned earlier is that my wife is a snorkeling fanatic, and we had to carefully balance the vacation time between DXing and snorkeling. Fortunately, both are awesome in Aitutaki. Since this was an anniversary trip to celebrate out first meeting 38 years ago, and since I was already making out like a bandit in the sunrise DXing sessions (with Bangladesh, Mongolia and Cambodia), attempting to DX around local noon would probably have been pushing my luck a little too far.

Gary

> On April 21, 2018 at 7:57 PM Mark Connelly via IRCA <irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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> On April 21, 2018 at 7:57 PM Mark Connelly <markwa1ion@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
>
> <<
> In the Cook Islands there never was a problem with transoceanic DX being too weak-- the problem was that it was too strong
> >>
>
> Gary, how many signals could be heard at high noon local (i.e. groundwave) with the most sensitivity you could throw at it?
>
> In Newfoundland, the DXpedition group managed NYC, Bermuda, and Azores at noon: all in excess of 1000 miles / 1600 km. When some skip got in the mix (NOV/DEC), the former Norway blaster (1314) and UK (1215) were basically 'round-the-clock signals.
>
> Back when Turks and Caicos 530 was big power, it could be heard here on Cape Cod all day at about 1400 miles / 2000 km.
>
> Mark Connelly, WA1ION
> South Yarmouth, MA
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