Guy is so right about the joys of DXing in a very low noise environment,
such as the Pacific coast Grayland site. I takes a lot of research and
running around to find an "ideal" low noise DX site and on our crowded
planet they become harder and harder to find.
I found such a site in a remote part of our Atlantic coast,Seefontein, miles
from the nearest town and miles from the nearest powerline. It's just bliss
to have that phenomena that Guy describes: when the noise on the antenna's
is so low you start checking to see if in fact they are connected. It is
such a joy to hear stations thousand's of miles away waft in over the
airwaves as clear as a bell, yet the signal strength is so low it doesn't
even move your "S" meter. What a thrill!
That's why some of us serious DXer's travel long distances with considerable
effort in time and money to enjoy these most favourable DX conditions.
Try it = you'll love it..............
--
John Plimmer, Montagu, Western Cape Province, South Africa
South 33 d 47 m 32 s, East 20 d 07 m 32 s
RX Icom IC-756 PRO III with MW mods
Drake SW8 & ERGO software
Sony 7600D, GE SRIII, Redsun RP2100
BW XCR 30, Sangean 803A.
GE circa 50's radiogram
Antenna's RF Systems DX 1 Pro, Datong AD-270
Kiwa MW Loop, POARDT Roelof mini-whip
http://www.dxing.info/about/dxers/plimmer.dx
"Guy Atkins" wrote in message
. ..
Yes, it's very quiet here in the Pacific NW, with the fewest "thunderstorm
days" of any place in the continental USA. In mid-winter, with a Western
Beverage antenna at dawn, aimed out over the Pacific Ocean, you'd swear
your receiver was defective, or the antenna broken. In these conditions,
extremely faint tropical band and foreign (TP) mediumwave signals have a
fighting chance to be heard (assuming a top-notch, low noise receiver like
a AR7030 or my current fave, the SDR-1000.
It was under these mid-winter, dawn enhancement conditions that I heard
tantalizing faint signals around 3174 kHz (variable) in the late 1990s,
which had all the clues of Indonesian "amatir" stations. Think: Indo
college kids back home on holiday or weekend breaks, playing non-stop Indo
rock music with flea-powered transmitters, no IDs, often distorted audio,
no official "RRI" news at the top of the hour, etc. I've heard enough of
the real RRI and RPD Indonesian stations to recognize the Indo amatir
(pirate) station. Similarly, I've logged very low power Australian x-band
stations such as Radio Brisvaani, the Hindi station on 1701 kHz (Brisbane,
Queensland). I'd never have a chance to hear this sort of DX, however, at
home in the suburban RF jungle near Seattle-Tacoma. These catches were on
coastal DXpeditions, under ideal conditions.
I do have pretty low noise levels of the RFI, hash-and-buzz sort at home,
due to the underground AC mains. The main problem are the dozen or so MW
stations registering S-9+40 to S-9+60 dB on the SDR's (calibrated) signal
meter. My local 1 kw'er, 1450 KSUH in Puyallup, is a bit over 1 mile from
home. When I had a 700 ft. Beverage antenna aimed at my Asian targets, the
antenna unfortunately was oriented right at KSUH, too. The signal on 1450
from that antenna registered -13 dBm, which is, I believe, around S-9+65
dB. This is an example of what the trans-Pacific MW stations need to fight
through to be heard in a suburban location like this. So far, I'm finding
the Wellbrook ALA 100 on a rotator does just fine for snagging the foreign
MW DX that makes it through the RF jungle; a Beverage is no advantage.
73,
Guy Atkins
Puyallup, WA
www.sdr-1000.blogspot.com