Re: [IRCA] [NRC-AM] [Am] Rockwork 4 Oregon Cliff

[Mark Connelly <markwa1ion@xxxxxxx>]

Gary, a few comments on your comments:

Some TA's on the West Coast are not much different distance-wise from 
some of the TP's to the West Coast, e.g. about 5000 miles.  The Pacific 
is rather wider than the Atlantic.  Until recently, Europe had many 
more high power signals than East Asia.  The situation is changing 
since we have lost the likes of favourable-northerly-location stations 
such as Norway 1314, Sweden 1179, Denmark 1062, Finland 963, Poland 
1503, etc.  These stations were among the Europeans most likely to get 
to the West Coast due to shorter transpolar distances and a greater 
opportunity to exploit the expanded auroral "doughnut hole" during low 
geomagnetic activity.  We also lost Croatia 1134, not as far north as 
Norway, but also a serious blaster throughout North America in its 
glory days.  Ditto for Switzerland 765 / 1566 and Austria 1476.  
Meanwhile, as broadcasting contracts within Europe, it expands in 
China, India, and other economic "tigers" of Asia.

At least, in the near term, this should mean Europeans will trend 
towards more difficult and East Asians towards easier.

Though China to BC/WA and UK to BC/WA aren't that different in 
distance, the major difference, of course, is that the TP's have mostly 
a water run for those 5000 miles / 8000 km.  TA's, depending on point 
of origin, are coming across a good chunk of Canadian landmass so the 
surface bounce of at least one or two of the skips would lose a lot 
more strength compared to TP's bouncing in the open Pacific somewhere 
between Alaska and Hawaii.  Additionally the TA - West Coast paths go 
closer to the polar region, so that also (usually) robs them of 
strength.  Fewer Euro's benefit from the "doughnut hole" now that there 
is literally nothing of significant power from Scandinavia anymore.

Japan, China, etc. going to the East Coast also traverse the polar 
region and are travelling longer-haul routes (greater than 6000 miles) 
than UK to Vancouver or Seattle.  Those TP to East Coast routes are 
substantially over land, knocking the stuffing out the signal with each 
ground bounce.

And, yes, domestic stations are more densely packed on the East Coast 
than out your way.  If a channel doesn't have a US or Canadian blaster 
on it (or IBOC / slop therefrom), it has a Cuban.  As you know, there 
are no interference-mitigating treaties between Cuba and the US, so (as 
you may gather from some of my loggings) the band is like a Wild West 
Shoot-Up, all along the Gulf from Texas to Florida and the Atlantic 
shore from Florida to Maine.

I think the above would take away the "unknown reason" idea about TA to 
West Coast success versus the TP to East Coast situation.

As far as you coming east with your cliffside DX gear, it would be 
quite interesting.

As you do out there, I think you would want to explore transequatorial 
rarities in the April to October period.  Summer is often considered 
"not the DX season" but if your aim out west is Down Under or, here in 
the east, Africa and deep South America then summer is exactly when you 
want to be on the job.

I think that out that way you tend to have less summer static than on 
this end.  T-storms can be a deal-breaker here, especially June to 
August.  It can be a nice clear night at a beach DXpedition site in MA 
but if there's a T-storm anywhere between Cape Hatteras, NC and Cape 
Race, NL, your listening experience will not be an easy one.  Storms 
200 miles or so out over land aren't usually a problem, but 800 miles 
on a water route can be a headphone smasher.  On the most sensitive 
(e.g. Beverage) set-ups, the nearly-constant thunderstorm activity at 
the mouth of the Amazon in Brazil, about 3000 miles distant, will 
register on the S-meter on less-busy frequencies.

It helps to be resident in the area since some nights just aren't going 
to be productive because of static.  The more opportunities you have to 
get out to the shore, the better.  This would tend to make a 
transcontinental trip to DX during a specific week rather like 
gambling.  You could spend hundreds of dollars and maybe just go home 
with some nice photo's, souvenirs, and memories of great seafood ... 
but not much in the DX department.  Or you might luck out and bag 
African, Brazilian, and Argentine logs that would even make the 
Newfoundland and PEI DXpeditioners envious.  Most likely the results 
would be somewhere in the middle, not too different from what guys like 
Bruce Conti, Marc DeLorenzo, Brent Taylor, myself, and other New 
England / eastern Canada DXers have reported in recent years.

There should be plenty of reference literature out there to help you 
determine what logs are common, semi-rare, and downright 
"from-outer-space".  Newfoundland and PEI DXpedition reports tend to 
highlight the rarer stuff.  Items in IDXD and DXWW-E run the gamut from 
common to deep-fringe.  Anything south of the equator is at least a 
pretty good catch regardless of which hemisphere.  Anything east of UAE 
is good.  Central Americans, though not terribly distant, are difficult 
DX since few are running the kind of power to compete with Cubans and 
domestics on similar bearings / shorter distances.  And, of course, 
anything west of the Central time zone, whether domestic or foreign, is 
a good catch.

Mark Connelly, WA1ION
South Yarmouth, MA

<<
Hi Mark,

<<<    Up to now I have only logged one TP, the 1053 Korea jammer heard 
around
dawn at East Harwich, MA about 15 years ago.   >>>

For some unknown reason, it really seems like the west coast TP-chasers 
have a much easier time receiving TA's (during the best solar years) 
than the east coast TA-chasers have receiving TP's. Presumably the 
heavy domestic splatter on the east coast has something to do with 
this, although the west coast also has its fair share of domestic RF 
pollution. During the 2009 and 2010 fall seasons signals from 675-Radio 
Maria, 693-BBC, 756-DLF, 1134-Croatia, 1377-France and 1575-R.Farda 
showed up here in Puyallup on Ultralight radios and a 9' PVC box loop. 
The Victoria DXers (Nick, Walt and Colin) routinely have the inner edge 
in the TA propagation, along with Nigel in Alberta.

<<<   And Gary, we need you to do your FSL + Ultralight thing here on 
the
East Coast someday.  I think it would be interesting to see what you
could come up with, especially just after local sunset in summer /
early autumn when exotic sub-Saharan Africans and deep South Americans
are more apt to be in the mix (as contrasted with the more typical run
of western Europeans / Mediterranean coast Africans).    >>>

Well, Mark, I would certainly love to try this-- although I haven't yet 
been able to figure out how to show up at an airport with one of the 
new 22-pound FSL antennas without sending TSA into an absolute panic, 
having my flight cancelled and sending the entire facility into a 
three-hour security lockdown. The alternative of sending the 22 pound 
beast through the mail (with its 86 relatively fragile ferrite rods) 
doesn't sound much more attractive, either. Probably the best option 
would be to have one of the Cape DXers receive a large order of ferrite 
rods from the Ukraine (assuming that the invading Russians don't try to 
re-claim this old Red Army material) and assemble a huge FSL on-site 
during an east coast trip-- leaving the antenna for you guys to use 
after a DXpedition. Such a project may need to wait for a while, 
however.

<<<    The sub-equatorial signals, other than a few blasters such as 
1220 Brazil,
are often down in the mud strength-wire and could use more gain than
what typical small-profile broadband antennas can deliver.  You could
clean up if conditions were auroral (to take some of the domestic pests
off the table).  Seaside cliff sites around here aren't too common but
Maine does offer some, especially at/near Acadia National Park.  There
are also some to be had in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland-Labrador.   >>>

As you know, Mark, one of the big challenges in having a west coast 
DXer chase transoceanic DX on the east coast would be the learning 
curve involved in memorizing which DX stations are on which 
frequencies, which are the routine big guns and which are the nice 
catches, and if really lucky, which are the all-time new DX catches for 
the entire coast. I've always admired dual-coast DXers like Bill W. and 
Chuck H. who can keep this information in their memory banks, but to be 
honest my TA-DXing experience has been limited to receiving the big 
guns listed above. During any "Cliffhanger DXing" on the east coast I 
would certainly need an experienced east coast TA-chaser alongside to 
figure out whether the FSL was receiving something good, bad or ugly.

As for the DXing desirability of the east coast ocean cliffs, there are 
still a lot of variables in this all-new science of enhanced cliff-side 
transoceanic reception that have yet to be sorted out. Probably the 
only way to be certain whether such a discovery will pay dividends on 
the east coast will be to try it out at a location that somewhat 
resembles "Rockwork 4" or Cape Perpetua on the Oregon coast. Those two 
sites have already provided some pretty freakish examples of 
transoceanic propagation boosts on Ultralight radios and modest-sized 
FSL antennas.

73, Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA)
> >

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