[HCDX]: Coorong DXpedition

[David Onley <donley@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The Coorong DXpedition - South Australia January 11 - 15

Attending were Dave Onley & Craig Edwards

Receivers
2 x SPR4's
Trio 9R59 DS

3 x 600m beverages
1 x 250m longwire

We had a few decent nights in Adelaide in sweltering 43C heat before heading
to the Coorong for some Dx. Craig Edwards and I have had some terrific
catches at this site over the years and my expectations were quite high. We
both left the shack on the Friday morning (15/1) feeling rather disappointed
in the trip. However after typing up the trail it wasn't such a bad effort
after all. 

As for the Europeans it was pretty poor. There were the odd stations around
such as VOA Rhodes on 1260, Novi Sad 1269, Radio Monte Carlo 1233, BRT
Belgium 1512 and the Vatican on 1611. These were all the powerhouse stations
however and there were no signs of 1296 BBC Orfordness, 1359 Spain, 1413
Pristiva, 1431 Ukraine, 1287 RFE Litomysl etc. The list goes on. The
interesting observation was that the Middle Eastern stations were quite
strong but that extra bit of distance tended to snuff out the Euro's. 

The big surprise of the trip was the strength of the Filipino stations. I
have to admit that one 600-meter beverage was pointed directly at the
Philippines. We got two decent shots at the Philippines just on their sunset
and again on our sunrise. Some of them would stay in all night or until
sign/off but most peaked on the greyline, which was quite interesting.  The
Indonesians made the odd appearance 1206 RRI Denpasar was down on previous
years however it was good to hear personal new ones such as 909 RRI Sorong
and RRI Jambi on 1098. The only Africans to show their heads were VOA Sao
Tome on 1530 and Maralal Kenya on 1386.  

We used 3 beverage antennas. We aimed 600m at Central Africa, 600m at
Central Europe, 600m at the Philippines and 250m at Japan. It was
interesting experimenting with terminating the beverages and using proper
earthing. I have come to the conclusion that earthing plays a very big part.
When you play with big antennas the earth bleeds noise away and can be the
key to getting that extra S-point. We had a terrific ground at the receiver
end in the form of an old rail line used as a clothesline. After scrapping
some rust off I was amazed at the jump in signal when we connected it to the
matching transformer. At the receiver end we used two pre-amps which were
acted as splitters, we could use two receivers off the one antenna without
any loss. The preamps worked well mid afternoon and early evening for the
groundwave signals however after dark there was far too much overloading and
images. From the preamps we ran coax out of the shack to the bevs via a
small balun (20metres) Both ends of the coax were grounded as were the
beverages via a 600 ohm resistor and copper pipe (Not ideal but ok) We used
the 3 receivers 2  Drake SPR-4's and my trusty old Trio 9R-59DS which can
still work miracles given the opportunity. 

Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have my web page updated with some
photos and interesting stories. You can find my MW page at
http://www.vds.com.au/~donley/dxing.html I suppose the next big trip will be
at Easter.

Coorong Trail Items 11 - 15 January 1999

792	1824	BEC33 Han Sheng Hualien TWN. Very strong w/Chinese. Female chat. 12/1
837	1950	Esfahan IRN Weak under 4RK w/presumed Farsi. 11/1
909	1830	RRI Sorong. Strong Signal at times with Indonesian. Telephone
conversations.  
927	1835	Izmir TUR Fair at times under 3UZ. TRT-1 program in Turkish 12/1
945	1839	DXRO Cotabato City. Nte PHL Nice signal. Zany DJ's w/laughter &
chat. 12/1
999 	1123	RRI Jakarta. Dominant over 2NB, Discussion and feature program
with 2 gents. 11/1
1035	1842	DZWX Baguio City PHL Tent this w/phone calls and chat. Mixing with
Taiwan 12/1
1098	1110	RRI Jambi Solid w/Indonesian chat. Heard while looking for 4LG
(Life's Good) 13/1
1206	1255	RRI Denpasar. Not as strong as in the past. Mixing w/Canberra.
Indo play13/1
1215	1107	DYRF Cebu City PHL. Regular and strong. Talk format 12/1
1233	1915	RMC Cape Greco CYP Arabic & English Songs. Poor compared to last
trip 13/1
1251	1913	Tripoli LBY Voice of the great homeland. Arabic program - Male
commentary 13/1
1260	1911	VOA Rhodes GRC Weak but audible w/Arabic. Only heard once whole
trip. 13/1
1269	1237	DYWB Bacolod, Neg. Occ. Heap of non-stop talk w/Male Announcer.
Fair.  12/1
1269	1739	Novi Sad YUG Another disappointing signal. Here with Serbian
program.13/1
1287	1852	RRI Palembang. Fair with Indonesian pops. Mixing 2TM & Chinese
station 12/1
1296 	1200	DXAB Manila. Mixing with Shanghai. Police sirens, Mission
Impossible theme. 11/1
1296	1200	Shanghai. Strong over DXAB and 4RPH. Chinese Female Announcer
w/talk 11/1
1296	1737	Reba SDN. V.O the Nation program in Arabic. No sign of BBC
Orfordness 13/1
1305	1856	Yan Kraw Bangkok THA. Screaming cat mx and presume Thai vocals. 12/1
1314	1756	Dabiya UAE. Big over Sports Radio with Arabic program.12/1
1314	1130	DWXI Paranaque. MM. PHL As with most of the Filipino's lots of
chat - Strong 12/1
1341	1750	Cairo EGY Huge over the top of 3GL.Arabic cultural program 13/1
1350	1905	JOER Hiroshima JPN Strong Signal over 2LF w/Japanese pop songs.13/1
1359	1857	Batra EGY Arabic mx at fair level. No sign of Spain.13/1
1368	1858	El Kharga EGY. Good level w/Arabic General program. Talk & mx.12/1
1404	1720	JOVR Shizuoka JPN (SBS) Female announcer in Japanese. Chat.  12/1
1413	1144	DYDW Tacloban City PHL Powerhouse signal w/religious program.12/1
1431	1714	Isfahan IRN Talk & mx in presume Farsi. Reasonable level.12/1
1440	1646	Dammam ARS The usual powerhouse Arab with talk & mx.12/1
1449	1334	6TAB Mandurah WA race results from around Australia. Poor 13/1
1449	1149	DXRM Marawi City PHL Tentative w/Male Announcer. Lots of chat &
jingles. 12/1
1449	1710	Bandar-e-Torkman IRN. Very strong w/Persian program of mx & talk. 12/1
1494	1150	DWLR Quezon City MM. Lots of laughter and fun between female
announcers 12/1
1503	1202	Unid Philippines. Heard w/possibly Cebuano dialect. Jingles &
chat. Any ideas? 
1512	1204	DYAB Manila. Very strong w/English and Tagalog. Id's and jingles. 12/1
1512	1928	BRT Brussels. Poor w/talk between male and female some mixing from
DYAB 11/1
1512	1851	BEP27 Taipei TWN Traffic Program. Strong w/ Mandarin talk and
Classical mx 13/1
1512	1851	Jeddah ARS Call to Prayer at strong levels 13/1
1521	1906	Duba ARS Arabic mx, male vocals at poor level under 2QN.12/1
1530	1702	VOA Pinheira Sao Tome. Weak under 2VM. VOA news in EE 12/1
1539	1653	Arbat IRN Poor w/Farsi program under Aussies. 12/1
1539	1849	Udon Thani THA. Thai mx and talk at poor level under Australians. 13/1
1548	1207	DYDM Manila. Huge over 4QD w/talk format. Phone calls and jingles.
12/1
1557	1215	DWGO Olangapo C. Zamb. Poor & Noisy w/talk format.12/1
1557	1936	Ardabil Iran. Strong Signal w/Persian mx with the occasional Male
Announcer.  
1566	1945	Sfax TUN Arabic vocals and suffering from heavy jamming.11/1
1593	1946	Unid. European in German Possibly Holzkirchen 11/1
1611	1843	Vatican VAT Very poor in Latvian under 6AY & 6GS 13/1

73
Dave


This Email originated from David Onley
Mediumwave & Tropical Band Dxer
Melbourne, Australia
Http://www.vds.com.au/~donley/dxing.html



------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a message from David Onley <donley@xxxxxxxxxx>
to hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx list. To unsubscribe the list, send
"unsubscribe hard-core-dx" in mail body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
For more information, please check http://www.iki.fi/rko/hard-core-dx/
or email Risto Kotalampi, risto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------------------------------------------------------------