[IRCA] TPs from Orcas Is. Sept 5 and Sept 6

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

Like Walt up in the Queen Charlottes, yesterday morning showed a 
recovery here, much more rapidly than I expected.  Conditions were 
transitional, with the bigger Japanese, Chinese and Korean guns 
present during the first half of dawn enhancement, followed by a very 
nice opening to DU land, with only one or two Kiwi stations but a 
large handful of the biggest Aussie guns made it in.  Actually, it 
was one of the better Aussie openings of the last three weeks or so.

This morning was a whole 'nuther story.

Happily, I started a bit early at 1245 (LSR=1335) and the dial was 
full of Japanese.  Eventually, I had 46 channels of audio, a lot of 
it in the fully intelligible 7 strength or better, in some cases, 
MUCH better. All of the low band NHK1s were in, with 567 qualifying 
for a perfect "10" at S-9+20./ I've never ever heard it so loud. A 
bit later, 738 was // 1143 as Taiwan Fisheries... I've been hearing 
738 consistently fror a couple of weeks, but this is the first time 
that 1143 made it in at very listenable levels. All of the low band 
NHK2s were at least 9s, 747, 774, 828 and even 873.  Even 891, NHK2 
was in relatively well, mixing with two others. A few of the Koreans 
and Chinese were around, but on 963, the usual powerhouse CRI Russian 
Service was far out muscled  by low power NHK1 synchros (!).

The high half of the band was a not quite so powerful, but Japanese 
stations were still present all over and 1260 (Sendai), 1350 
Hiroshima and 1440 JOWF Sapporo were all dominating their North 
American cousins for a while during max dawn.

The band stayed alive for maybe fifteen minutes past dawn (a sign, 
here, of very good conditions) with a few DUs showing up at or just 
after dawn itself.

The most interesting probable Aussie was playing pops, hosted by a 
male, on 1656.  PAL doesn't list anything on this frequency, but I 
seem to remember something about a new Aussie on this frequency, 
maybe????  Anyone have any info or ideas.

There were hets on almost every TP frequency that did not have audio on it.

I was disappointed that none of the NHK2 synchro frequencies were in 
strong enough to really understand when local ID time came around at 1320 UTC.

So, it was a pretty fabulous morning.  I hope that this was one of 
the mornings that Walt planned to be out on Rose Point, 20 miles from 
any civilization. If so, its likely that he could run all his 
equipment and charge his car battery off the RF. Wow!!!

I have had a chance the last couple of days to work on some of my 
UNID audio from my trip to Grayland 10 days ago. I had recorded the 
NHK2 synchro station IDs on 1386 on two different mornings.  Both 
were marginal, but with Cool Edit, I was able to pull up a pretty 
reasonable ID for JOQC, Morioka. I got that confirmed this morning by 
a Japanese professional colleague... and a reception report is going 
out Monday..... FINALLY!!!  JOQG is the NHK1 companion to JOQC in 
Morioka and is usually what we hear in the fall on 531, often alone 
and Morioka is the most northerly of the 4 ten kW synchros on 1386, 
so it makes sense that it was them.... It is sure nice to finally get 
an ID, though.

I got the Wellbrook Array up yesterday and spent part of this morning 
comparing it to the big Asian Super Loop.  The two little Wellbrook 
deltas beat it every time... either in raw signal or, especially in 
signal/noise ratio. Unfortunately this steep mountainside restricts 
my E-W antennas to 100' or less, so I'll continue to use the Conti 
Loop toward Australia.

What will tomorrow's dawn bring??? Christmas in September :>)

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