Nick certainly brought the luck with him from Victoria as Tom, Craig and I had one of the most thrilling sessions ever at the Rockwork ocean cliff. The legendary weak station 585-Radio Ngati Porou (// 603) was heard for the first time in 4 years, and Tom mentioned that he had never heard 531-More FM so loud. 585-7RN in Tasmania had a booming signal, while Craig had so much choice DU-DX on his new "Baby FSL" that he seemed awestruck.
As we drove up in total darkness at 1140 the "sleeping squatters" were once again out in force, so we needed to split up into two groups-- Craig and I at Rockwork 6, and Tom and Nick at Rockwork 4. When the first FSL was set up on 531 kHz in total darkness at 1155 UTC there was already an S9+ signal from 531-PI, which astonished all of us. This was exactly the same situation as in July of 2014, during the NZ-record (88 Kiwis) DXpedition with Chuck. This morning's session was every bit as good as during the Kiwi Record trip-- if not better. Every NZ station I tried for showed up, and the other three DXers seemed swamped with choice DX all over the band. Even Craig was making out like a DU-DXing bandit with his 3.5 inch Baby FSL, tracking down 531-More FM, 558-Fiji, 585-7RN, 936-Chinese Voice, etc. The session was definitely a thriller, and will surely be remembered for the ages!
A photo of the four DXers together after the awesome session is posted at https://dreamcrafts.box.com/s/1vvrv5cyfl7di16ba5sv3u7mkx1fkeqf
Full details to follow...
Gary DeBock (in Nehalem, OR)