[IRCA] Report from Grayland, Oct. 15th

[Guy Atkins <dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kevin Schanilec and I arrived at Grayland Beach State Park yesterday for
three nights of DXing. The primary antenna in use for this trip is a
Wellbrook ALA100 phased array, although later today I'll probably put up a
PA0RDT Mini-Whip for a "reference" omni-directional antenna. Kevin is using
his ICOM R-75 on the Wellbrook array, while I have a recently hotrodded
AR7030 Plus receiver in use.

Kevin is also trying out two Ferrite Sleeve Loop (FSL) antennas on this
trip, including his new and very clever "Backpack FSL".

A casual check of the band at approx. 0400 revealed 738 Tahiti at a fair to
good level, and some island music and talk from 1017 Tonga. There were
strong hets on usual South Pacific frequencies 846 and 1098 but no audio at
this time.

Our first serious session on the bands was at 0930 UTC. Conditions were not
impressive-- we heard a few NHK outlets such as 774, 747, and 828 kHz, but
only at moderate level. Kevin found 1566 HLAZ very strong, however. Overall,
reception 0930-1000 seemed poor with not many TP signals to be found so we
went back to bed.

We were at the dials again later around sunrise, and didn't find conditions
to be much better. A few Japanese outlets were still "in" on the low band,
but most of the action (what little there was to be found) was on high band.
There was a sudden switch to DU at 1445 when we logged 4BC Brisbane with ID
as "4BC, your Australia, your station" on 1116. Shortly after that we came
upon a presumed 4QD Emerald on 1548. Moving up the band, regular channels
1566 and 1575 were absent of any signals.

1134 JOCR was heard with a weak to fair signal around sunrise too, but that
was the extent of audio from Asia on the upper half of MW. Chinese
broadcasters were also notable due to their absence.  Overall this was a
very lackluster morning at Grayland, but we have two more nights here for
things to pick up!

Kevin's planning on taking one or both FSL loops to the beach itself prior
to sunrise tomorrow, to get the antennas and his ULR receivers as far as
possible from the RFI noises on long wave heard within the park boundaries.
(Background noise levels on the MW and the tropical bands are extremely low,
but long wave is noisy close to the yurts.)

About an hour past local sunrise I moved up to 60 meters and enjoyed nice,
low noise reception of six All India Radio regional stations.

Well, I was surprised at a few of the reports of good Asian TP reception
heard by others this morning, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. This
hobby is very unpredictable! Long distance MW propagation to various
locations can be quite variable, even when the locations are in the same
region.

73, Guy
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