I'm not sure I can agree with Bill and Dennis' estimate of this morning's
DX; I listened pretty continuously from 1400 to 1550UT, and there were
more (and stronger) signals than I knew what to do with (see below). The
upper band may have been down a bit from yesterday, but the lower band
more than compensated.
One variant however is that I was using a different antenna than usual.
Some time ago I haywired a WNW 23' x 33' corner fed loop to try and get
some percentage of what Walt Salmaniw hears with his larger corner fed
loops (height matters if you ever build one of these, and I don't have the
convenient tall trees that Walt does). There's more raw signal with it
than the Flags, but it doesn't have as good rejection of domestics, so it
tends not to deliver the DX any better than the Flags. However, this
morning for some reason it was just roaring with signals while the Flag in
a similar direction was relatively subdued. The corner fed loop still
delivered a fair bit of splash, but the DX had more punch; the splashiness
might explain why my perception was that there were a lot of strong
carriers that should have been delivering audio and weren't. That
disparity continued until about 1540UT, when the two antennas quickly
returned to their previous more normal characteristic!
s. Put that into my "I'll never understand antennas" file.
pretty darn good audio (at least briefly):
279 R. Rossii at 1514UT
594 JOAK
639 CNR1 //5030 at 1431
774 JOUB
828 JOBB
972 HLCA at 1544UT, KK talk by man
1566 HLAZ barely making it into this category at 1542UT ; monster carrier
as usual, but audio doesn't appear until later
reasonable audio at times during the period (though often battling
w/splash or noise):
189 R. Rossii //279
531 JOQG //594 at 1455UT; this gains readability by being a splatter free
channel
558 HLQH at 1534UT //603; this was probably JOCR earlier when not //603
567 JOIK at 1402 //594
603 HLSA building in strength from 1500 to peak around 1530UT; two
stations quite weak before 1500 though
648 presumed VoR briefly at 1412 and didn't return
747 JOIB
not so reasonable audio, occasional words in splash or noise:
585 JOPG //594 at 1409UT
657 at various times, but mostly a big hum on the channel
873 JOGB at 1438UT
936 likely Anhui at 1438
1017 at 1445; wasn't China, possibly NHK2 but faded before could snag a
parallel
1287 JOHR
1575 VoA w/woman in SE Asian language 1508; something else came up also,
and there was something
about 150Hz low on the channel as well.
Burbles in the splatter and noise:
153 R. Rossii //279 at 1403
621 ? at 1432
666 JOBK //594 at 1419UT
945 woman talking in splash with echo? at 1442UT; not CNR1 or NHK1
1044 likely CRI at 1423UT, but not up long enough for a parallel
1134 various times, but too much splash for much audio even on the Flag
1206 likely Yanbian, big carrier and hum at 1443UT
1242 various times, likely Japan?
1269 Japan? at 1422; big carrier
1278 China? at 1425
1305 likely HLSV at 1447UT
1314 possibly Japan at 1541UT
1377 CNR1 //5030; big carrier almost sounded like somebody with an OC on
channel as well
1593 various times, too much splash for a //
Strongish het, no audio (either undermodulated or ravaged by splatter):
lots; unusual were 738 which looped to Tahiti, and 1107 which had a big
hum on the channel as well.
best wishes,
Nick
*****************************
Nick Hall-Patch
Victoria, BC
Canada