My wife, my DX-398, one of Gary DeBock’s FSL antennas and I all hopped on the MS Rotterdam out of Boston on August 2 for a 38 day excursion. Ports visited were Bar Harbor ME, Sydney NS, Corner Brook & Red Bay NL, Qaqortoq Greenland, Reykjavik Iceland, Aalesund, Bergen & Eidfjord Norway, Rotterdam Netherlands, Dublin Ireland, Liverpool England, Isle of Man, Isle of Skye, Djupivogur, Akureyri & Isafjord Iceland, Nanortalik Greenland, St. Anthony & St. John’s NL and Halifax NS and then back to Boston, where we stayed in Woburn.
Considerations: (1) our cabin was on the port side so that was helpful for about half the trip; (2) most DXing was done daytime up to 10:30LT at night. When you are losing an hour frequently, when your wife gets sick and when you are tired from a lot of tours, you are not prone to get up at 4 to DX - the point being, when we were east of Greenland, I wasn’t up to catch U.S. TAs. Also, some nights it was just too cold, windy and wet to DX outside; (3) the FSL is a marvelous piece of equipment. However, it is indeed directional, and since I was surrounded by metal on three sides, I couldn’t always use it to best advantage. What I needed to do was sit on the stern with a Lazy Susan; and (4) there is not a lot of exciting DX in here. That’s because anyone at the same location would receive the same stations I did; there were no skips and no distance records were set. I have purposely omitted the non-real DX regularly heard megastations, Spaniards, BBC, Talksport and Absolute biggies because they are obvious. However, it was fun, and that’s what hobbies are all about. Loggings are split because of size. This is Part 1: IN NORTH AMERICA (EDT) 549 - AA teletalk, leaving St. John’s NL, 570 - Nuuk only fair 7p 8/8 as we entered Qaqortoq, Greenland 590 - VOCM St. John’s. VOCM heard promoting its return to a heavy new coverage around the province. Its newscasts were heard at one time or another on 570 590 620 650 710 740 870 (1010 (probably an image) 1230 1240. These are not reported separately below but were all heard. 600 - CBNA St. Anthony NL. I thought this was a low power CBC repeater in Red Bay because it faded out fairly quickly when we headed north. I then looked at a map… 720 - Simiutaq, Greenland semilocal in Nanotalik 9/2 8a, //95.0. (NOTE: 650 never heard) 729/738 - RNE R. Nacional, //, 7p 8/8 approaching Qaqortoq (RNE) 900 - AA 9/5 7:05p leaving St. John’s NL 980 - WCAP (oldies) w/very strong het (Algiers presuming) nearly NF, 8p 9/5 981 - AA teletalk, entering Qaqortoq 9:40p 8/8 (Algiers presumed) 1089 - TalkSport on top of WBAL 8/8 9p approaching Qaqortoq 1100 - WHLI Hempstead even w/WTAM 9/12 8:25p from Woburn. On a little late? 1110 - SS even with WBT in Red Bay NL, 10p 8/6. Presumed Venezuela 1110 - SS, what sounded like R. Cinco, 6:50p 9/5, leaving St. John’s NL 1160 - WVNJ Oakland NJ (local talk) and UNID NH station (c&w) even many nights in Woburn 9/9-12. 1200 - WXKS Newton MA (Bloomberg) // WRCA-1330 Watertown. Nothing like a little signal overlap (noted in Woburn 9/12) 1210 - VOAR Mt. Pearl, NL still here but not for long from what I understand. This was heard last year on another cruise about 150 miles south of Bermuda. 1220 - UNID, “The Legend,” 6 hrs out of Boston 9/8 1015. 1341 - BBC Ulster wiping out 1340s, 8pm 8/5 off of Sydney NS and 9p 9/5 leaving St. John’s (Part 2 follows…) Pete Taylor Tacoma, WA 12225w 4719n HQ180 & ICF2010 Gary DeBock FSL antenna Kiwa aircore & Palomar loops DX398, SRF-59 & M37V Eton E100 + Tecsun PL-300/380 _______________________________________________ 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
