[IRCA] Grayland Beach State Park WA DXpedition - August 13-15, 2012

[Guy Atkins <dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Another Grayland DXpedition is in the history books. The August weather
there was sunny and warm but unfortunately the DX haul was a bit gloomy. As
always I hoped for at least average conditions but it was if a big, muffled
blanket was thrown over the band! Still, there were some interesting
catches. Logging eleven Hawaiians (with IDs) was the most fun. Surprisingly
I heard stations in Ketchikan and Nome, too, with a SW Beverage antenna at
230-235 degrees! That beverage must have had a big side lobe to the
northwest. Nome KICY was particular strong and surprising.

The underbrush has grown too much at the south field of Grayland--and I'm
less motivated to crash through the obstacles and crawl beneath the dense
growth as I get older--so the Extended DKAZ
antenna<https://docs.google.com/open?id=1E8uYPix1lTs-VBvSJKT0vnuTN-roFnxhDnRS1OFNWxWb7ilbiwIvwSLGh19n>I
had planned was a non-starter. That was disappointing, as I really
wanted
to try a DKAZ for the first time. There's a couple of sites at the north
end of the park that should work for TPs with the DKAZ in the fall or
winter though. The first night I settled for a 35 X 16 ft. terminated loop,
suspended about 7 feet above the camp site. Even after maximizing the
termination there was lots of domestic splatter. That fact coupled with the
mediocre reception netted me only a few catches the first evening.

The second day I decided to run out an unterminated "Beverage onna bush" to
the southwest. I ended up with 850 feet oriented as best I could from
230-235 degrees. This Beverage resulted in a HUGE reduction of domestic
splatter during daytime tests. I'll have to show you fellas a couple of
Perseus screen shots that are on my other laptop right now. Many signals
were 40-50db down, and I measured one at 57db reduction from the terminated
loop! At night of course the domestic signals really picked up on the
Beverage, but it was far better than the loop (oriented on the same
bearing). The big difference was doubly surprising, given that it was an
unterminated Beverage.

This was the first DXpedition for me that RFO Tahiti on 738 didn't make an
appearance at all. Very strange. I also didn't note any of the other South
Pacific islands like Solomons, Kiribati, Tonga, or Vanuatu. I had quite a
few New Zealand stations (mainly RNZ national), but most of them weak and a
struggle to hear above the noise floor. It was the same thing with the few
Aussies I heard...if I wasn't for the distinctive ABC network trumpet
fanfare I wouldn't even be certain I was hearing an Australian outlet in
the muck. In most cases I really had to work hard at pulling the DX out of
the noise.

You can check out 30 audio clips of the DX at this page:
http://www.guyatkins.com/dxped/grayland_13aug2012/index.htm

73

Guy Atkins
DXing at Grayland Beach State Park, WA
Puyallup, WA USA
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