For the solar eclipse trip to Lincoln City, Oregon the decision was made to take along modest TP-DXing gear, since a flat ocean beach at that location had already been tried three times previously, without any special results. Prior to setting up once again at the relatively flat Road's End State Park, however, I decided to set up on the side of a pretty steep hill overlooking the South Pacific (DU) direction. All I had with me was a single 8" FSL antenna (less than half the size of the largest model) and one hot-rodded CC Skywave Ultralight. Because of limited packing space I didn't even have an SSB spotting receiver, an important piece of gear used during DXpeditions to check the carrier strength of possible DU targets.
No matter! The ocean side hill location (a public parking area .on NW 50th Street in the Road's End neighborhood, leading to an ocean beach access path) provided phenomenal DU propagation, allowing the very modest gear perform like gangbusters. I'm just starting to go through the recordings, but it's pretty obvious that the ocean hill geometry was boosting up both New Zealand and Australian signals to astonishing levels (depending on which area was favored in daily propagation changes, usually Australia). Here are five samples of the freakish propagation, all received on the C Skywave and modest 8" FSL antenna. 558 6WA Wagin, Australia, 50 kW ABC female and male conversation at strong level at 1327 on 8-22, matching the same program and voices heard on 774-3LO at the time (although direct parallel wasn't confirmed, possibly due to a programming time delay). Extreme long-range DX (over 9,000 miles) https://app.box.com/s/f1qjlre02gk9hw6hofb0n8ib0cs91a0v 639 2HC Coff's Harbour, Australia, 5 kW Call-in talk program at 1306 on 8-22 at a very good level, previously running commercial ads (and not // 891). Dominant over a weaker 5CK throughout the session https://app.box.com/s/q52xk4p57efhlqvg40d2i7c4abvibmko 765 Radio Kahungunu Napier-Hastings, NZ, 2.5 kW Low-powered Kiwi Maori station with one of its best signals ever (even including at Rockwork 4) at 1241 on 8-20. DU propagation at this location generally seems to favor Australia, however https://app.box.com/s/p4h9y6deb001xwrzrp3yzeh2co0fu34q 891 5AN Adelaide, Australia, 50 kW Blowtorch signal with ABC local programming information overloading the Ultralight's front end at 1332 on 8-21 (its strongest signal ever received in 15 DXpeditions) https://app.box.com/s/ro04jx3x4ueqcgu6e1lfgztnlj33txzf 1026 4AA Mackay, Australia, 5 kW Rock music pushing S9 during the "20-20 Red Coast Countdown" at 1352 on 8-22 https://app.box.com/s/95ypca1ppm765w236es1ojesqvsxjhu1 More details and MP3's will follow after further file review. 73 and Good DX, Gary DeBock (DXing in Lincoln City, OR, USA) 7.5" loopstick CC Skywave Ultralight + 8" FSL antenna (top of the line gear back in 2011) DXing site setup photo at https://app.box.com/s/184jvwy43jrow9ocz646khoz46qdl70p _______________________________________________ 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]
