Re: [IRCA] Sat-Sun-Monday - TP Oct 8, 2012 / Jordan River Pacific version: comment

[Walter Salmaniw <canswl@xxxxxxxxx>]

Besides what Gary has observed, I have to think that Point-no-Point is just
not that great of a DX site for TP DX.  I listened on both Saturday and
Sunday mornings from Rockwork south of Cannon Beach, OR using the FSL
broadband version.  Saturday morning was very good, IMHO with plenty of
signals especially in the bottom half of the band.  Sunday was not as good,
but still not bad.  Unfortunately, I can't rate the mornings vs my
standards of BOGs or corner-fed loops, which I'd love to do.  In any case,
I'd rate Saturday as a 7 or 8, and Sunday, a 5.  I had thought that you
were off to Tofino, the real west coast of Vancouver Island.  You still
have to contend with the Olympic peninsula to a large extent, and the full
length of V.I. to the NW.  The only clear open ocean is to the W/NW, a 15
deg slice.  Just my $0.02 worth!  ......Walt

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 7:53 PM, cafe-swl <cafe-swl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> Spent Friday night through Monday morning at the Point No
> Point cabins near Jordan River, B.C facing out over the pacific --
> http://www.pointnopointresort.**com/ <http://www.pointnopointresort.com/>
>
> Was testing out Gary Debock's innovative surplus ferrite rod
> antenna design -- its performance comparable to a 4' open frame
> loop. As it turns out, for me, this could have well been the
> single worse series of days for radio listening.
>
> MONDAY: Up at 1340 UTC and stuck with it til the stroke of 1400 UTC.
>
> Some strong carriers in some odd places - and no audio of
> note anywhere -- complete absence of any Pacific Asian audio.
>
> Having just read Nick's report, I should have hung out for
> sun rise and harvested at least a shred of radio dignity -
> This was DAY THREE of the new Russian Surplus Gary Debock
> antenna shake down (AKA, the Flux capacitor, AKA R2D2 [my wife's
> favorite antenna nickname so far] -- AKA the Russian Gatling Gun
> and now my official model number: SRFLA-50 {Surplus Russian Ferrite Loop
> Antenna -
> model 50 > 50 cores after all...}
>
> On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is an awe inspiring morning with the dial
> choked with so many signals as to leave the listener overwhelmed and
> 1 is the result of a lightning strike to the front end, or dead batteries
> or an ionosphere that is utterly missing in action -- I would rate this
> morning as 2 -- and that is being generous.
>
> SUNDAY:
>
> Conditions could not have been that bad but they were much worse than
> Saturday morning - 529 Alaska weather station was almost full deflection
> on the Sony 2010! Promising. As I moved up the dial it was revealed
> that there would be lots of carriers with little snippets of audio
> here and there. Loud carriers on 558, 639, 702, 729, 738, 783, 792, 801,
> 891, 1008, 1098 teased me incessantly but never revealed more than
> an illusion of audio. If memory serves me, audio may have appeared
> briefly on 774, 828 and 972.
>
> I stuck with it from 1330 to 1410. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would
> have given it a generous rating of 3.
>
> SATURDAY:
>
> I arose with high hopes at 12:55 UTC -- and it was clearly obvious this
> was too early for anything - again, lots of hets on the lower band (531 -
> 1000)
> and no audio anywhere - as an indicator of potential, the Alaska weather
> station was
> well placed on 529khz. Things picked up over 15 minutes or so and some top
> tier Japanese stations poked their noses through on 774 and 828. Korea on
> 972 was
> at fair levels at times - and the best signal on the band was 1566 Korea.
> There were hets on almost every low band channel from 531 up but nothing
> jumped
> out of the radio. I kept at it until the sun came up over the West and it
> became
> clear that this particular morning was low mediocre. Funny thing, I got up
> early on
> Friday to give the SRFL-50 a quick run and I was flabbergasted by the sheer
> strength of the one channel I dropped in on; 774 Japan.
> Overall, I would rate Saturday morning as a 3.5 - hardly worth the effort.
>
> I am currently thinking about advance shipping the SRFl-50 to Hawaii -
> but that will depend on it showing off its true powers between now and
> January.
> I actually have my fingers crossed that everyone else did as poorly --
> making my experience less miserable.
>
> As a side note - this was the first weekend away in a long time that I
> packed nothing but 1 "large" radio (the 2010) and two small radios;
> the Eton E100 barefoot (great performer) and the G3 Traveler +
> 1 antenna, the SRFA-50 (apologies to Gary for giving his antenna a product
> number!)
>
>
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