Re: [IRCA] Try Sleep Deprivation: TPs for 10/29

[Bruce Portzer <bportzer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nick's observations and data match my experiences quite a bit.  I tend 
to get up earlier than most Graylanders - sometimes at 2 a.m. local 
time, and often find conditions quite good then.  At that time of night, 
the regulars tend to dominate.  It seems like the really good stuff 
comes later - around sunrise.  But the dial is often quite good long 
before sunrise.  There often seems to be a general decline an hour or 
two before sunrise, when the enhancement kicks in.

I DXed for a couple of decades before I even heard of the idea of 
sunrise enhancement.  Up until the late 70s, the norm was to get up in 
the middle of the night in order to hear trans-Pacific DX.  This was 
partly because many domestic stations had late night silent periods 
(especially on Monday mornings), allowing the then-cochannel TPs to slip 
through.  TPs on the open channels like 660 770 830 840 etc were 
typically in from their local sunset until our sunrise  (this was before 
the clear-channel breakdown). 

Apparently the idea of sunrise enhancements wasn't totally unknown back 
then.  In about 1971, Len Lockwood, one of the local old-timers, told me 
the best time to hear Down Unders was right around sunrise.  At the 
time, I made a few polite monosyllabic responses, but privately though 
he was a bit off them mark.  It would be many years until I became truly 
aware of sunrise enhancements.  Even after the TPs switched to the 9 kHz 
plan, I followed a dual strategy of DXing at sunrise on weekdays (when I 
had to go to work) and middle of the night on weekends (to take 
advantage of what I thought were the "best" TP conditions).

It's interesting how opinions can change over time.   I don't think 
anything's changed in the way signals propagate, but my DXing habits 
have changed (99% of my serious DXing is now DXpeditions vs 20 years ago 
when 99% was done at home), and the band has changed (much more domestic 
QRM to deal with, more noise, etc) leading to someone stumbling onto the 
truth.....

Bruce

John H. Bryant wrote:
> I've become more and more curious about the excellent TP reception 
> that I've been experiencing when I'm up 90 minutes or more before 
> dawn.... more than 30 minutes before First Light.  I don't think that 
> I completely understand Nick's explanation of this propagation that 
> he uploaded yesterday, but I decided to try REALLY early this AM. My 
> first sweep was three hours before LSR at 1154 UTC turn-on. The lower 
> half of the dial was FULL! From the bottom of the dial until 1161, I 
> had substantial carriers or audio on every single split except 549 
> and 1125!!!! Of those same channels, 41were in audio, with the vast 
> majority being in listenable audio. By and large, Japan was strongly 
> favored, with the 702 NHK-2 synchros in (rarely heard here) along 
> with 729 JOCK, also not a normal visitor. JOUK on 612 was there, and 
> there were some nice Chinese around, too, including 621 Heilongjiang 
> and several of the low band CNR1s.
>
> When first light and then max dawn arrived, those channels below 1130 
> were ALL down quite a bit, except JOKR on 954 which always seems to 
> peak late.  Of the few remaining real audios, the Chinese seemed to 
> suffer the least damage. In fact, 774 Japan had dropped so low that 
> China was dominating part of the time there. I wonder if this 
> hyper-early opening is a high-latitude thing, only????  I wonder if 
> Nigel P. has ever tried this late in the season at 2 or three hours 
> before LSR??? How 'bout Bill B. in Prescott?? Surely some other old 
> duffer out there needs Flomax??????
>
> Gee, for those of us with, ahem, reason to get up early, it sure was 
> a swell morning!
>
> John B. 
>
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