Was up almost two hours before dawn again and and was
greeted with conditions that were better than May 29. The band below 1200
was virtually full of hets with a handful of them in audio. I spent quite
a bit of time, early, with 765. It was Australian and originated in
Brisbane. I think it was a syndicated show, with the male host
interviewing a female singer. It was either 5CC in Port Lincoln or 2EC in
Bega and both are new for me. Possibly some internet work will tumble an
answer. I heard them on both the 313E and the E100.
After that, it was pretty much off to the races. Like the first morning,
both 774 and 1287 were in as Japanese (on the E100) in the pre-dawn hour.
They and hets on 1566 and 1575 were long gone by dawn. I also had a fat
het on 1323 which was likely the Chinese in Russian. It never made audio
while I was sitting there.
Before dawn, I also invested a great deal of time on 657 which was in at
a fair level. I hung there through 1200 UT hoping to ID Southern Star in
Wellington and nail a new country, but the probable ID and brief news
cast were just too muffled to catch more than three or four words
(DRAT!). However, well after dawn, 963 was in and clearly parallel to
657, so both were Southern Star. 963 Christchurch is a brand new station
for me, too. I had paralleled 567 RN Wellington with 756 RN Auckland to
count as New Zealand on the E100 a few minutes before I caught the
Southern Star parallel.
At dawn itself, I paralleled 612 and 702 as ABCs Metropolitan Service in
Brisbane and Sydney, though neither quite made it to the E100.
The big surprise of the morning was Radio Tahiti on 738. Yesterday this
channel had been a DU, but at 1203 UT Radio Tahiti was walking tall. It
came in as well on the E100 as it did on the 313E.
As dawn began to wind down, I hit the potential Hawaiians again, and this
time was rewarded: The preacher that I was hearing on 760 yesterday was
clearly KGU as I heard both a "KGU Christian Talk" and an ad
for a local church at 1256.... and the business/news programming that I
heard yesterday morning on 670 hung in there until it IDed as KPUA at
1300. Both were almost as good on the E100 as they were on the 313E. Many
thanks to Patrick, Bruce and Kaz for the tuning tips for Hawaii. I'm
going to keep trying for the others.
So, I think that I got three new countries this morning: New Zealand,
Tahiti and Hawaii. Frankly, I forgot to check the IRCA list to see if
Hawaii is a separate radio country.... it is on most lists.
A couple of other thoughts: I was messing around with the SW antenna
during daylight hours yesterday. It is the most Southwesterly I've ever
used here. Being only 150 feet long, the property is easily wide enough
to crank it around to 230 degrees (the best that I've ever done before
was probably 250 degrees.) 230 puts it aimed at the waters between New
Zealand and Australia with the backside pointed at Vancouver, Victoria
and Seattle. During the daytime yesterday, I was consistently putting 40
dB of null on Victoria on 900... sometimes even 45 dB. With 890 being
pretty open and 40 dB of null on 900, no wonder that the E100 heard the
two DUs on 891 yesterday so darn well.
The E100 is clearly my digital Ultralight of choice for split frequency
work. It is the only digital one (I think) that tunes in one kilohertz
increments. Quite a few of my loggings this morning were
accomplished by sliding one or even two kilohertz off-channel. I'll be
working with the National SRF-39 more from Orcas Island, because I think
that it is a good DX machine, but right now, I'm so busy logging that I'm
sticking with the E100. The modified DT-200VX... with Guy's IF filter mod
and my external antenna port is not quite as good as the E100 AND
it cannot tune in 1 kHz. steps (only 9 or 10). Its a fine Ultralight
radio for domestic work, but not for Trans-Oceanic DXing.
Once again, Ultralighting took a average morning and made it
special!
John B.
Reporting live from the Westport, WA Library. A sandwich and a Coke were
$14.00 at the Local Tavern!
