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@hard-core-dx.com
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@hard-core-dx.com
