[IRCA] Friday Oct 20 & Sat Oct 21: Grayland Report

["John H. Bryant" <bjohnorcas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Friends:

Through a comedy of semi-errors, I was not able to contact the web 
yesterday from Grayland. Here are reports for Friday morning and 
Saturday Morning, too:

FRIDAY, OCT 20, 1100-1500 UTC

By nightfall last evening,Guy and I both got set up down here on the 
Coast; he is camped (in his minivan) at the state park about a 
kilometer from the Grayland motel and I'm ensconced in Room 15, as 
usual. We got together for a bit and then headed our separate 
ways.... we had hoped to be in contact once per hour in the early AM 
via my "10 mile" range FRS.  However our evening radio check was 
almost a complete failure, so as I type this (1900 UTC) I have no 
idea how the AM went for him.... He may be uploading today, too....

For me, it was up at 4:00AM (1100 UT) anticipating one morning of 
classic Asian DX before the auroral conditions arrived (though John 
Plimmer had warned that we might see some AU cx on the 20th AM.)  The 
first hour was classic early AM Asian. I had CNR1 stations parallel 
and most loud on a goodly number of frequencies, a slew of other 
Chinese and all of the usual JJ and KK suspects. I even had the CNR-7 
Hummer station from down near Shanghai in at good volume and humming 
away. The sideband hums were almost as strong as the carrier.  It 
took me an hour of language IDs and note taking to work my way up the 
band.  When I started my second sweep, I noticed that signal levels 
were WAY down.  I still had Asian audio in mabny of the right places, 
but the strength was down a loooong ways. (This was 1215 UT.)  By 
1300, I decided to take an hour break and catch a little more sack 
time.. Local sunrise was 1440 or so and here at the coast, the DX 
would roll in until well after 1500.

At 1400, back at the dials at First Light.  My first note in the log 
was "Man, conditions are even worse than 1300! 747, 774 are only hets 
and 828 is threshold! (those are the biggest JJ Guns)"  I got clear 
up to 1035 kHz before I tumbled to what was happening.... Instead 
of  CNR1 from China, I had Kiwi audio at a good level!  We were in 
the onset of classic AU conditions! I got several more DU stations in 
the log before I hit 1386..... and there I hit the mother lode: It 
took me instantly back to all of those days of SWBC DXing.... Koranic 
chanting or something very close to it!!!!!! Further, the imam would 
chant only a phrase and then someone would say words in Urdu!!!! I 
was (and still am) certain that it was Urdu or Pushto, very closely 
related languages. That language group is Pakistan, parts of 
Afganistan and a bit of Iran....  It sounded like they were 
translating the Arabic Koranic chanting into Urdu/Pushto one phrase 
at a time.  Well, the first thing I checked was the terminator.... It 
was over Iran. WOW! I then looked WRTH.... East Asia... Nothing 
remotely likely. I looked in the Europe, Africa, Middle East section 
and there was a 600 kW regional in Iran, though it was listed as 
inactive in 2004. I ended up recording 35 minutes of this 
Urdu/Koranic chanting... It was classic long haul stuff.  Up to a 
very listen level for a couple of minutes, then a long fade down to 
nothing.... then slowly back up. If it wasn't the Iranian, 
reactivated, could it be one of  the US-funded propaganda stations in 
Afganistan.  Wow, what a catch.... and at the perfect time... dawn 
enhancement at AU conditions onset at Grayland.  If ya were ever 
going to do such... these are likely the conditions.

Well, I left the Winradio 313 recording away on 1386 and moved over 
to my new E-1.... a bunch of my SWBC buddies have acquired this radio 
and love it, so I am trying one out as my #2 radio.... It worked 
amazingly well and I logged 15 DUs in the next 45 minutes.  Most were 
Aussies, ABC... one of the three parallel services and the E-1 did 
very well.  After 45 minutes of recording 1386, I shifted back to the 
313 and continued to log DUs, using the E-1 for parallels through my 
stereo headphones. That didn't work quite as well as I'd wish.... 
with one radio in each ear, because the DSP Winradio audio lags 
noticeably behind the analogue Eton E-1.... Its only a third of a 
second or so, but very noticeable.

Well after dawn, I tuned back across 1386 and there was DU 
English.... so, I listened for a bit and tried to discover just what 
it was... I'm not sure what made me look closely in PAL, but I 
did.... and my eye landed on Radio Tarana in Auckland.... but it did. 
The PAL listing noted "Hindi and URDU!" Not a minute after I read 
that entry, the DU English ceased and Hindi pops singing by a female 
artist cranked up!!!!   AW, XXXX there went my Iranian/Afgani catch, 
right out the window!!!

Man o man, Ol' Bruce saved me from myself again! I'm actually glad 
that the whole thing happened..... It was a wonderful adrenaline rush 
that lasted over an hour.... I got most of the thrill out of a real 
catch and was once again reminded that I need to be more cautious 
when "presuming" things about what I hear on the band..... Still, I 
REALLY wish it had been Iran, even if they wouldn't QSL a Yankee Devil.

Some of the TPs were still in audio when I quit the band at 1530, 50 
minutes after dawn.

With the AU in full swing, CX could be awful tomorrow morning.... or 
not.  In either case, I'll still be looking for Afghanistan, or at 
least India :>)


SATURDAY, OCT 21, 1110 to 1500 UTC

I had no idea what to expect this morning, of course, and I was 
gratified to find the band quite active when I checked in at 1110, 
4.5 hours before dawn. What I found was a rather "normal" early Asian 
morning.  The band was filled with 45 to 50 signals in audio that was 
strong enough to easily recognize the language.  It was all the usual 
October suspects (welcome tho they were.) Japan, China and the two 
Koreas.  The Koreas seemed to be slightly favored early and that 
continued through the rest of the morning. 657 low, North Korea was 
huge. 702 high, North Korea was in audio, despite a modulation 
percentage somewhere in the teens. 972 South Korea was at local 
level, literally. 864, HKLR was also excellent, as was 1188, FEBCs 
HLKX in religious EE. Manchurian Chinese stations were also doing 
well, with several of the CNR1 outlets booming in and the Chinese KK 
Service on 1206 low. CNR-1 signals on 945, 981, 1035 and 1593 were 
each outstanding, for at least a while.... And the JJs and other CCs 
were doing about their usual.  The nicest catch early was Radio Korea 
International's JJ Service out of Gimje was totally dominating 1170 
for a 10 minute newscast at 1200. I heard that at about this time 
last year, but not nearly so dominant.

After that very reasonable start, the 90 minutes before band fade was 
disappointing..... Things actually deteriorated just a bit by the 
time dawn enhancement was really going.  Most of the stations that 
were noted earlier, between 1110 and 1230 were still there, 1330 to 
1500, but with the exception of a few, the levels weren't really as 
high as earlier. The more interesting loggings were presumed Tianjin 
Economic on 1071, a completely UnID CC station on 1125 and presumed 
Hebei #1 on 1278.  In truth, the dawn was disappointing, though there 
were quite a large number of stations in some form of audio.

Well, the nicest thing about this hobby is that every listening 
session is sort of like Christmas morning... what did Santa bring???

John B.

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