1. posterid:515133
  2. PL-380 / Puerto Rican DXers

PL-380 / Puerto Rican DXers

MarkWA1ION
 

Guido, I'm sure you'll do very well when you can get outside. That's one advantage of ultralights: you can take them anywhere - backyard, high-rise rooftop, park, beach, mountain, etc.

For DXing in the house, you could always put a longwire or broadband loop outside, use a noise-reducing balun transformer, and run the feedline into the house. This would be connected to a tunable ferrite coupler such as the RadioPlus Shotgun or Q-stick. If you have a Radio Shack, Select-a-Tenna, or Terk passive loop with an external antenna jack, you could use this too. Just place the radio near the coupler and peak-tune to enjoy the signal boost, low noise, and directivity of the outdoor antenna. The "Faraday cage" of your house actually helps keep indoor noise (computer hash etc.) from getting to your outdoor antenna.

Reports from down your way will be very welcome since overall MW DX activity is the Caribbean area is small. In a recent NRC IDXD, I did see the name Kraig Krist, KG4LAC, at Rio Mar Resort in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico. He reported using a Tecsun PL-310 so maybe he reads this list (and maybe you know him?).

I posted logs from a recent Boston area mini-DXpedition at "http://home.comcast.net/~markwa1ion/duxbury_20101111.txt" and some audio clips may be accessed from links at "http://home.comcast.net/~markwa1ion/dx_audio.htm".

Logs are Perseus, not ultralight, so not posted here. They may still be of use to some of you, especially along the US and Canadian East Coast.

Conditions that day (11 NOV) did not include much from the south, unlike some other openings. Sometime I'll get a good run to South America and the Caribbean and I'll report on that. Most likely this would be characteristic of spring and summer. But the sun can flare up at any time just to keep things interesting.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL !

Mark Connelly, WA1ION
Billerica, MA + South Yarmouth, MA, USA

--- In ultralightdx@yahoogroups.com, Guido Santacana <foxam2001@...> wrote:

Thank you Mark. AMDXing is a whole new ballgame for me. For 34 years most of what I have dome is ham radio, SWLing and boatanchor collecting. Although I don't go to the beach as often as I should, my location is pretty high in the San Juan suburbs. The catches that I mentioned were done inside my reinforced concrete home that acts almost like a Faraday shield. This weekend I will see what I can catch outside.
 
Happy Thanksgiving!
 
Guido KP4FAR

--- On Wed, 11/24/10, MarkWA1ION <MarkWA1ION@...> wrote:


From: MarkWA1ION <MarkWA1ION@...>
Subject: [ultralightdx] Re: PL-380
To: ultralightdx@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, November 24, 2010, 1:38 PM


 



Welcome to the list Guido. Logs from Puerto Rico will be quite useful to those of us along the US East Coast, especially during auroral conditions when propagation tends to turn southerly and the Caribbean / South American stations become prominent.

Also interesting would be to see what you can receive at that location from stations in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. I'd think that, especially around sunset from a beach location, you could do pretty well. Allen Willie's frequent reports will give you useful tips on which transatlantic stations could be targets for your efforts.

555 is ZIZ from St. Kitts, one of the last of the Western Hemisphere "splits" and a station logged quite often in the eastern US and Canada. As far as I know there are no medium wave broadcasters active in Jamaica anymore.

Mark Connelly, WA1ION
Billerica, MA + South Yarmouth, MA, USA

--- In ultralightdx@yahoogroups.com, "foxam2001" <foxam2001@> wrote:

Finally, after my experiences with the Kchivo D96L, an ultralight that really lives up to its reputation. WLW in Cincinnati coming in almost like a local and I am in Puerto Rico not in the mainland. Radio Rebelde from Cuba just as strong as any local station. One station was picked at 555 kHz with reggae music. It could be Jamaica but I am not sure. Country music from Nashville TN. This was just a test carried out quickly. Excellent SW performance too for an ultralight. Lets see what I can catch barefoot from this spot in the weekend.

73s

Guido KP4FAR
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