Vacation DXing at the Beach (Query)

[Omega-TI]

I'll be at Ocean Shores (the Washington State peninsula) for the last week or July. I plan to do some late night and early morning DXing while my honey is still sleeping. I'm aware that some propagation is better over water than it is more inland, so does anyone have any target frequencies or band that I should pay special attention to? I'll mostly be listening between the hours of 4am - 6am and 10pm-12pm. Yeah, I don't sleep much in my old age.

I'll be taking an Eton Elite Executive for shortwave and an SDS100 for everything else since they are both small and will fit nicely into a suitcase.

Thanks.

 

[TAC4]

That sounds like major fun and a great radio combo to bring.
Scan everything, I find when you have set of frequencies
or bands to try to listen to they never pan out because of
how dynamic propagation is and something new will
show up by surprise when you least expect it.

 

[Omega-TI]

That sounds like major fun and a great radio combo to bring.
Scan everything, I find when you have set of frequencies
or bands to try to listen to they never pan out because of
how dynamic propagation is and something new will
show up by surprise when you least expect it.

You do have a point there. I was considering doing a little BCB-DXing in addition to shortwave. My hopes are "something" from Australia in English and not just Asian stuff from NHK or CRI. I sure miss the old days when the bands were full of International broadcasters speaking English.

I think I'll also take my digital audio recorder as well so I'll have proof of anything new, good or interesting.

 

[bearcatrp]

As posted above, just scan the band. I take my belka to Cozumel when I go down in the winter. Every night was different. Some nights there was plenty to listen to, other nights was not so great. Enjoy and have fun. Let us know if you hear some interesting stations.

 

[Boombox]

Asia is your friend in this case, at least for SW. If you have a MW loop -- or one of your radios is really good on MW -- I'd try for some MW from Asia and Hawaii. Maybe even Alaska would show up, because of the water path. Oz & NZ on MW might be a tough sell. You'll undoubtedly be able to hear more Asian stations (including Chinese domestics, VOA to Burma, and maybe AIR India and other subcontinent broadcasts) than you'd get in inland WA state.

Also, if you have an SSB radio, don't forget the 40M and 20M ham bands. 40-41M should be packed with CW, Indonesian ham pirates (LSB mainly, speaking Bahasa Indonesia, between 6900-7020 or so), hams from Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia. There's a lot that goes on in the 40 M band during the early morning.

The 41 M section, of course, has a lot of China and other big broadcasters. Perhaps load an EiBi SW frequency text file onto your phone or tablet for reference. It's pretty helpful that way.

Good luck and let us know what you heard. I haven't been to Ocean Shores in ages. Great place to fly a kite, and get some ice cream. Last time I went I wasn't into the radio hobby, never took a radio.

 

[ka3jjz]

If you are shooting for any Non-US TPs, then reset your spacing to 9 instead of 10 khz spacing, or you might miss something. Even a little antenna like the AN-200 might give you an edge you might not otherwise have

Good luck and enjoy...Mike

 

[Omega-TI]

Thanks guys, I hadn't thought of taking my AN-100 on the trip, but I think I'll do that now. At this point the amount of gear I'm taking is adding up, I'll have an almost full-blown monitoring station there! I guess I'll have to take some pictures, or even make a YouTube video... if I receive anything decent. I have decided to run everything on batteries this trip for ease of transport and because I doubt I'll get more than 6-8 hours total listening time in.

@ka3jjz thanks for the reminder on the step rate, I'll be sure to set that for late night DXing.