[IRCA] Day TWO at Grayland
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[IRCA] Day TWO at Grayland



Having had such a productive Japanese opening very early yesterday, on our first morning here, Kevin and I got up at 1115UTC, now the equivalent of 3:15AM LST, a full hour ahead of yesterday's start. Like Day ONE, this morning we found the band already rather full of fairly strong signals from Japan and the most regular of the Koreans. Also like yesterday, the "early opening" lasted until just after 1300 when signal strengths fell away quite a bit, while simultaneously working their way farther west. There was a selective recovery at dawn enhancement where most signals came up a bit and a scattered few came up a lot.

So, the pattern was exactly as yesterday; however, over all things were not as good as on the previous morning.... much more pedestrian. Although I logged an additional twenty stations, missed in the rush yesterday (most) or not present (a few,) what I did log were stations that have been semi-regulars in the last several Fall seasons. There were a few of the more obscure NHK synchro channels present and we had a spotty opening to DU, with 1116-4BC Brisbane present at 1200, 2.5 hours before LSR. (Wow!) DUs were also present on 531 and 612 nearer to dawn with each fighting it out with the JJ regular on that channel.

900 Victoria was more prominent this morning than yesterday; however, I was sitting on that channel at 1500, hoping the CNR2 from Qinghai province (NE of Tibet) would fade up briefly, as it seemed to yesterday. Sure enough, something came up just a bit and I heard what seemed to be 5+1 pips at the hour. Unfortunately, nothing else made it through Victoria today.

The Wellbrook experiments continued, with the Super Loop array being clearly superior to the poorly grounded K9AY array in every situation that I checked. That is a great report, actually, since the K9AY Array was proven superior to the ALA-100 Array that was Wellbrook's standard (and my antenna of choice) for the last couple of seasons. The two-loop K9AY phased array was also the one that, though poorly grounded, held its own with the new Lankford 4-loop array in tests two weeks ago. With the newest Super Array, however, there were a few instances of overloading (yes!) on 774 Japan and once on a nearby local, so I'm going to reduce the sail area of the Super Loops by half during the day today. I'll still have significantly more included area in the Super Loops than in the K9AYs and, with the two phased Super Loops, I have an antenna that does not depend (like the K9AY does) on the quality of grounding for any of its directional gain/nulling.

Keven Schanilec left this morning to return to greater Seattle and the World of Work. It was great getting to know him on a face-to-face basis and to have two DXers in the room. I'm staying one more morning, to conclude this round of Wellbrook tests and to try to scarf up a few more TPs before I close out my DXpeditioning for this year. I'll be reporting on Day THREE when I return home to Orcas Island.... likely uploading on Tuesday AM

John Bryant
WinRadio G313e + two NW Wellbrook Phased Arrays

_______________________________________________
IRCA mailing list
IRCA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca

Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers

For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org

To Post a message: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx