[IRCA] DUs from Grayland, Thursday July 10: KIWI HEAVEN

["John H. Bryant" <bjohnorcas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gosh!

The very best morning of Kiwi DX was in March of 1990 when Linda and 
I were camped in our tiny trailer at a seaside campsite in the Hoh 
Rain Forest, that soggy temperate rainforest that is trapped between 
the Pacific Ocean and the massive Olympic Mountains of far NW 
Washington State. The area gets almost 10 meters a year of rain and 
it rained HARD, constantly from our early AM arrival. By night fall, 
we had decided to retreat to the eastern side of the mountains where 
it was dry, leaving early in the morning. It was so wet that the 
popular campground was virtually empty and I decided I couldn't 
possibly put out a serious antenna and DX at dawn.  I decided to hand 
15 meters of wire in the tree that we were camped under so that I 
could listen to Radio Australia at dawn on shortwave, should I awake 
at my usual pre-dawn hour. I did wake up about an hour before dawn 
and turned on 9580. After a few minutes, I got curious as to whether 
there might be at least one or two Big Guns on MW, so I tuned down 
there, thank God! It was wall-to-wall DUs and almost all of them were 
Kiwis. The few Aussies were about what you might expect to hear on 
less than 50 feet of wire. Most of the Kiwis were at very listenable 
levels and I was familiar enough with the DU dial, even in those days 
to play the parallel game to the hilt. Almost twenty years later, 
slightly more than 50 percent of my Kiwi QSLs came from that 
morning.... Something like 22 or so (my records are at home.)

This morning was not that good.

But it was the`second best Kiwi morning that I've ever heard. I 
started 90 minutes before 1220 dawn and immediately noticed that 
there were quite a few Kiwis about and at elevated levels. There were 
a few Aussies, at far poorer levels than yesterday and the now-usual 
few JJs, also down from yesterday.  I really 657//963 was doing the 
best of the season at 9 and 7 respectively and then I hit 738. 
Tahiti's carrier was unbelievably strong... more so than most locals 
except for 810 San Francisco. With almost no modulation, it looked 
like a tall skinny spike on the display. I could hear a little audio 
that sounded French... maybe.  Things seemed to switch back and forth 
on 738. Sometimes when I'd stop by, it sounded/looked as described. 
At other times, 2NR was there at a fair level.  I think that the 
Tahiti transmitter may be failing, though I was never listening when 
if faded or cut out.... It was so strong that I was pretty sure that 
the propagation was favoring south.

One of my early stations was a DU EE horse race call at a fairly low 
level on 549. The only real suspect is 1kw Radio Trackside from 
Napier, NZ... Though there is also a 1kW Radio Sport in Nelson. I'm 
gonna report to both and hope that Radio Sport can tell me that it wasn't them.

From there it was just FUN... heck, it was better than sex... and 
lasted for over two hours. Here are abridged notes:

1035 Newstalk ZB Wellington, very strong
1296 Newstalk ZB  Hamilton fair
1386 Radio Tarana, Auckland 8+ with Hindi mx and talk
1044 Newstalk ZB, Dunedin fair

1593 Polynesian music, almost certainly Radio Samoa, Auckland NOTE: 
this was on 1592.975, something that I've noted but not reported as 
an off frequency het on other good AMs.

648 Radio Rhema, Gisborne with ID at 8 level
828 Horse racing call from 2kw Radio Trackside, Palmerston North, 
dominating 3GI in Sale, Australia
882 Southern Star, Auckland with ID at 1215, good signal
909 2XD Southern Star, Napier //657 fair to good
981 1YE National Radio 2kw in Kaikohe //675
1403.96 Het and some EZL audio... almost gotta be Kiwi... Rhema in 
Invercargill. Kinda shocking
1053 Newstalk ZB, New Plymouth //1035 briefly, 30 minutes after dawn, WOW
1251 R. Rhema, Auckland //648 at 1254 UTC Contemp. Christian

1287 at 1256UTC. Low level DU EE talk. This might have been 2TM in 
Tamworth, but only a few Aussies were in and I SWEAR that I heard a 
"Newstalk Zed B" ID!!!  The only Kiwi is 3ZW on the SW corner of the 
South Island and it is listed as Scenicland FM. I do note that 2TM is 
"News Talk 1287" and a heck of a catch at any time, much less 45 
minutes after dawn.

My last notes were that 882 and 909 Southern Star were still both 
putting in more than threshold audio at 1310, a full 50 minutes after dawn.

I sure hated to take those antennas down!!!  And now, for the first 
time in three years, I've got Kiwi receptions to write... a very nice 
problem to have.

John B.
WinRadio 313e + Ultralights
Wellbrook Phased Arrays, SW and NW
Grayland, WA, USA

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