[IRCA] A mostly failed DX trip to Grayland WA

[Aaron Kreider <aaron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Over the holidays I spent two days around Hoquiam WA.   On the morning 
of December 28 I tried to hear some TP MW stations.  I setup in the 
Westhaven state park (on the WA state coast) along the sidewalk in the 
main parking lot.   While the Dxing wasn't successful, I did learn a 
number of things about preparation and weather.

For starters, setting up an antenna in pitch black on a coast with major 
wind gusts is challenging (I started around 6:20 am). Unfortunately the 
new 500 foot wire that I'd just bought at Home Depot was tangled - so I 
spent time trying to untangle it in the dark while a friend held a 
flashlight.   Ultimately I resorted to cutting it in pieces with the 
wire cutters and my antenna ended up being around 200 feet (on the 
ground) with a short coax feed to get away from the laptop (a Macbook 
pro that puts out a ton of RFI - especially when you use the touchpad).

I used a QS1R powered with a battery pack and a laptop.

There was a lot of wind (maybe 50 mph gusts?), it was relatively cold 
(45F - could have been worse), and there was the occasional short rain 
shower.

I focussed on recording the MW spectrum.    Unfortunately either the 
laptop shut down to save energy, or the QS1R battery pack was getting 
weak - and I lost most of my recording time.  So I was left with several 
minutes of recordings from 16:10 - 16:50 (sunrise was at 16:02).

I think there might have been problems with some of my connectors, as I 
got better shortwave reception using my portable (Degen 1103) connected 
to the other end of the antenna.  The portable got good reception of the 
Australian stations in the 120 meter band (and other stations in the 60 
meter band) whereas they were much weaker in the QS1R recording.

The QS1R recording feature is not the greatest. For instance, you cannot 
jump to a time - instead you have to replay the entire clip.

Results
While driving earlier in the car I got good reception of 540 CBC 
Saskatchewan.  Otherwise nothing too spectacular.  I only noticed the 
faintest traces of any TP stations (558, 1134, etc) .  The night before 
I heard a very faint het on 738 using my Tecsun PL 880 (with internal 
antenna) at Hoquiam.

Aaron
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