Kevin; Excellent report! Good luck over the rest of your time there. Enjoy your family time too!
73, Dave in Indy ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:41:31 -0700 (PDT) From: [email protected] To: [email protected], [email protected] Subject: [IRCA] Long Beach, Washington DXpedition - Day 1 Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Hi all: Greetings from Long Beach, WA! It's about 60 miles south of fabled Grayland, WA, and a whole lot further away from my strong locals in Seattle. I'm with the girls, staying in a stand-alone A-frame cottage with no RF to speak of, and an extra bedroom full of all my stuff. I'm about 800 feet or so from the beach. I am using an Icom R75 and a dual Crate Loop plugged directly into a Quantum Loop base unit as the main ?spotter? receiver. (I also have a few Ultralights and larger portables.) While no Beverage or other outdoor antenna is being used, this morning didn't really require one! I got up at 0330 local (1030 UTC), and delightfully found hets on virtually every 9 khz channel, and at least 25-30 had intelligible audio. The powerhouses were in on the smallest of Ultralights, with armchair copy on 594, 774, 828 and 972 khz. 693 was battling 690-Vancouver and 747 was battling KXL-750, but both came in well on the little guys with help from a passive Crate Loop. 774 was in well all morning and lasted until well after local sunrise, embarrassing 770-Seattle at times. The highlight was at 1356 UTC when both 774 and 891 came in from Australia. I got 891 barely mumbling on the WRX-911 barefoot, but with the Crate Loop the horse racing report came in well, as well as a TOH ID. 774-ABC was only strong enough to hear on the R75/Dual Crate combo. I was struck at how un-dominant the Portland stations are here. Long Beach must be in something of a Portland shadow, while Seattle stations were much more meddlesome. Also, 690 out of Vancouver was amazingly strong, whereas near Seattle where I live (much closer to Vancouver), it often struggles to be heard, so I must live in a Vancouver shadow! Some equipment notes: - The e100 Slider with the Murata filter did very well, picking up much of what the spotter receiver was hearing. However, with the Crate Loop augment, the Slider was hearing a lot more. In many instances, mumbling on the Slider was rendered clear with the Crate Loop. So, if I had to take only one radio and loop to the beach, that combo would be it. - The Sony M37V, with its replacement filter, did OK but often needed help. The Crate Loop really helps out with the selectivity if the correct orientation (facing/adjacent) is chosen. - The Kaito WRX-911 fared quite well, although the lack of digital readout can be a drag at times when chasing TPs. I also have a Sony 7600GR, SRF-39 and Tecsun PL-450 along, but there wasn't enough time to try all of them. So, for my first proper DXpedition, quite a morning. Time for a nap and some sightseeing with the girls, then up again early tomorrow for Round 2. Kevin S Long Beach, WA _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected] 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: [email protected]
