In article ,
"John Plimmer" wrote:

My DX pal, Gary Deacon has just caught KSL Salt Lake City on 1160 khz using
his ancient (unmodified) rusted and salt encrusted Yaesu FRG-7 and his
ALA1530 which sits hanging unmounted on his cupboard door. Salt Lake City is
9,700 miles from his suburban home in Fishoek, a small coastal resort near
the main city of Cape Town. The catches he gets from home attests to the
remarkable "sea gain" experienced on the MW band when you DX from the beach
(or near it).

He did get a better catch than that at our September equinox DXpedition when
he caught CASH in Tecate Mexico, right next door to San Diego CA. That was
at the Seefontein DX cottage right on the beach of the Atlantic ocean, also
using his Frog but then with a 1,300 foot beverage antenna over the shoulder
to New York.

Motto of the story is that you don't have to have the world's latest whizz
bang radio to get those amazing DX catches, but as Conrad Hilton said, it's
all about position, position position!

More info on Gary's activities at Fishoek and our Seefontein DX site can be
found at
http://www.dxing.info

"Sea gain"? Sounds interesting - please explain. Once while
vacationing on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, Anna Maria Island,
Florida, I was pulling in all kinds of DX at night on the 20 meter ham
band on my Radio Shack DX-440 portable - much more than I ever did at
home (inland).

Greg