[IRCA] Oregon Coast DXpedition

[d1028gary@xxxxxxx]

Hello All,
I'm sending this initial report at the Liberty Inn Motel in Lincoln City, OR, so please forgive any bizarre email transformations. Ruth, Danny and I left Puyallup on Saturday for a 7-day family vacation, and although I was unsuccessful in persuading them to stay at the Grayland Motel, it was possible to arrange lodging in Oregon within walking distance of TP-enhanced ocean beaches.
My equipment is rather basic, with a newly-designed 7.5" plug-in loopstick Tecsun PL-380 ULR (both LW and MW 7.5" plug-in loopsticks) and a 3' portable PVC tuned passive loop, which is designed to easily fit in a crammed compact car trunk (and be assembled, in the dark,within a couple of minutes).
South Pacific DX has been excellent for the first 3 days, with 18 DU's (South Pacific DX) stations heard from Australia, New Zeakand, Fiji (639), Tahiti (738). and a French-speaking station on 666 kHz that I've never heard at Grayland. Multiple DU's have been fighting it out on several frequencies such as 531, 639, 657, 738, 891 and a few others. This morning I had the thrilling experience of making an MP3 of two stations on 738 kHz (Tahiti and ABC Grafton, Australia) fighting it out with both at 9+ levels, maxing out the PL-380's digital S/N indicator with a 25 reading (with RSSI of 55). THe barefoot Sony SRF-T615 also easily received both stations, a very rare event for a stock Ultralight radio. New DU's on 585, 603, 666 and 684 kHz have also been received, but several of these will require assistance from DU-DX experts for definite identification. MP3's have been made, of course,  for such future detective work 
Because of dissatisfaction with our Seaside, OR motel (which had a very crowded, smoky beach with serious RF hash from adjacent motels and walkway lights), we decided to move to this Linclon City, OR location, which seems like a dream come true for DXers. There is a cliff adjacent to the nearby ocean beach, with an ideal picnic table for radio and PVC loop setup. The cliff seems to add at least 5 dB to DU signals, making Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands boom in on the modest equipment.
We have four more days to go in this DXers' paradise, and like John Bryant used to say, even if you've already had a blast with DXing fun, it's never too late to be greedy for more! After returning to Puyallup, I should upload the various MP3's, and a full DXpedition report. Thanks again to Walt for his recent Masset DU logs, which have been extremely useful. Have fun, guys!
73, Gary DeBock (N7EKX), in Lincoln City, OR      



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