Re: [IRCA] [coastalroundtable] Re: [NRC-AM] Recent DXpedition to Grayland, WA & Florence, OR

[Bill Whitacre <bw@xxxxxxx>]

Thanks Gary.  Let me ask if you've ever done 'cliffside' DXing closer to sea level but just as close to the sea?

I'm thinking, maybe, it is the proximity to the sea that is more important than elevation.  In all your elevated, cliffside locations are you not literally 'perched' over the ocean?  If you were suddenly transported vertically down you'd be in the water, right?

I saw a number of pull-offs at or near sea level on the way from Grayland down towards Yachats a few of which looked like they had enough room for a DKAZ -- these were actual parks, not the precarious pull-offs you're so fond of!  I volunteer to check one of these out next time I'm out there or look for a rental that's closer to the sea and closer to sea level.

I'm also wondering if one put a DKAZ or flag out on the beach at Grayland we might not get a little better signals?  That's an awfully wide beach and except at really high tide you're a few or several hundred feet from any breaking waves when you erect antennas in the 'back yard' behind Room 15.

Just some thoughts.  I wonder what others' experiences are with elevation and proximity to water -- salt or fresh?

---
 
On Aug 7, 2012, at 3:47 PM, D1028Gary@xxxxxxx wrote:

> Hi Bill,
> 
> Thanks very much for your detailed investigation of relative DU signal
> strengths at the 800 ft. high ocean coast elevation near Florence and
> at the much lower elevation near the Grayland Motel. I'm sure that your
> detailed work will be very helpful in clarifying the principles
> affecting ocean cliff propagation. Thanks also for posting the links to
> many Australian and New Zealand signal recordings made at each
> location, all of which are most interesting. Having recently gone
> through the process of recording and posting many MP3 recordings from
> the recent Cape Perpetua ocean cliff DXpedition, I can certainly
> appreciate all the time and effort that was required.
> 
> In regard to the relative signal comparisons, the DKAZ antenna seems to
> have done a great job at both locations, and I'm surprised that the San
> Suci recordings at 800 feet do not show much of a signal advantage over
> the Grayland recordings near sea level. I would have loved the
> opportunity to set up at the Cape Perpetua ocean cliff site with the
> PL-380 and 8" FSL antenna (the same combination used during the recent
> trip to receive DU's at very strong levels) at exactly the same time,
> and record some MP3's to add to the comparison. I have no doubt that
> the PL-380 + 8" FSL combination would lose out miserably to the Perseus
> SDR + DKAZ antenna combination at either of your locations if there was
> a relative reception comparison, but because of the FSL antenna's
> unique ability to set up at the very narrow ocean cliff site at Cape
> Perpetua it apparently was able to tap into DU propagation of highly
> unusual strength, even with the modest Ultralight radio receiver. With
> the much more sensitive Perseus SDR the 8" FSL may well have produced
> legendary DU signals at the ocean cliff site, instead of the booming
> ones that were overloading the modest PL-380's front end.
> 
> Most of us have had the experience of listening to a distant AM radio
> station on a sensitive car radio while we go up a steep hill. If the
> distant AM station is located in a direction down slope from the hill
> we usually can hear the weak station's signal strength rise
> dramatically as we go up the hill in our cars. This dramatic effect
> usually stops at the top of the hill, though, and as we go further away
> from the hill the weak AM signal begins to drop off again. It will be
> very interesting to run more tests on ocean cliff propagation to see if
> this same effect applies to DU and TP signal boosts. Thanks again for
> your detailed work, Bill, which is much appreciated.
> 
> 73, Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA)
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Whitacre <bw@xxxxxxx>
> To: Mailing list for the International Radio Club of America
> <irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; am <am@xxxxxxxxxxx>; coastalroundtable
> <coastalroundtable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tue, Aug 7, 2012 8:17 am
> Subject: [NRC-AM] Recent DXpedition to Grayland, WA & Florence, OR
> 
> From July 31 - August 2 I visited Grayland, WA and Florence,
> OR. At each location I set up a Perseus and a an 'extended
> DKAZ' antenna pointing at 235 deg -- towards Hawaii and the
> south Pacific [Aus/NZ]. The best day, of course, was the
> last day and I have put sound samples from 1300 utc up
> through 1280 kHz from both Grayland and Florence on a
> webpage for comparison:
> 
> <http://realmonitor.com/am_logs_grayland6.php>
> 
> I'll be adding more as time permits.
> 
> The Grayland location was the famous Grayland Motel and
> Cottages and the location near Florence was a place called
> Sans Suci at about 800ft. elevation and back about 1000ft.
> from the Pacific. There are Google Map links to both sites
> on the webpage above.
> 
> Also on the webpage are links to stats [stations logged,
> countries logged, stations/country, etc.], a Google Map view
> of the loggings and something I call AzBar which is a bar
> graph of the number of loggings at given azimuth ranges -- a
> good way to visualize how an antenna works.
> 
> There is also a link to a pdf drawing of the extended DKAZ
> antenna, designed by Neil Kazaross. It is the best
> single-element, non-phased antenna I have ever used. It's
> pretty easy to errect and without phasing doesn't give me
> the opportunity to screw things up! What it does require
> though is some tweaking of the termination resistance - Rt.
> 
> I know there's been a lot of interest recently in cliffside
> DXing. Perhaps some of the data in this report will let you
> compare simultaneous loggings from two locations at very
> different elevations. Unfortunately, the locations were also
> about 6 hours drive from one another so I make no claims on
> the issue based on these loggings but I won't be foresaking
> the Grayland Motel anytime soon!
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