We set out from Brisbane on Saturday morning and headed up to Bribie to test two different length EWE’s that evening. At Bribie, Ray Crawford and I couldn’t get into our usual location, ex Telstra Coast Station receiving site, as the key I have is now the wrong one, so we did a bit of sand track driving and found another very open space at the old Queensland University Mills Cross Antenna site, where they used to bounce signals off the
ionosphere. Both of these locations are now part of the greater Bribie Island National Park and there’s not a power line in sight! The ground is only a few metres above the water table and quite moist with only a low cover of vegetation and a few trees about.
We set up 2 EWE antennas at approx 66deg mag: one EWE the standard 10-25-10 ft, and the other 10-50-10 ft long. Each antenna was set up identically with the front end (balun) supported by a tree and the back end (resistor) supported by a 5 metre fibreglass pole held up by 3 guy ropes. Four foot copper clad earth stakes were driven into the ground, boy didn’t I have fun getting those back out after forgetting my vice grips!!. My Sangean 909 receiver came in handy when tuning each aerial and I chose ABC Toowoomba 747Khz as my test frequency which was nulled ok on both antennas.
The tuning resistance for each was completely different, 1.3Kohm for the standard and 4.4Kohm for the longer one. Maybe the difference was due to the longer EWE not being the same ratio. I will have to try a 20-50-20 and see if the resistance actually goes down.
It soon became apparent the 50 foot ewe was clearly at least one to two extra ‘S’ units in signal strength above the standard one on my Drake R8A. I tuned the Sangean 909 to the Big 870 New Orleans 5835 SW (very good signal) then whizzed down to MW and heard 1520 KOKC at armchair strength around 0630 UTC. The sun was still high in the sky and we weren’t quite set up by then.
We actually started listening just before 0700 UTC and the highlight of the night was at 0805 UTC 650 KENI Anchorage in Alaska with ABC news an ID ‘News Radio 650 KENI.
Another interesting catch was CKMX 1060, Calgary, Canada with country music funny thing is when I got home I turned on the radio and could still hear this station !!. Well, after a successful afternoon and evening we dismantled everything and headed for home at around 1030 UTC
It was quite a good trip considering we were only an hour out of Brisbane and had a few hours of DX. Who knows this may turn out to be a new DX location close to the beach and Brisbane.
Bribie Island Trail
580 0815 KMJ Fresno CA, good with talkback
650 0756 KENI Anchorage AK fair with ABC news and good ID 5 minutes after the hour News Radio 650 KENI
666 0800 New Caledonia good with talk and occasional vocals
729 0820 New Caledonia good with talk and vocals better than // 666
730 0815 CHMJ Vancouver BC fair with ESPN sports still there at 1020
750 0900 KXL Portland Oregon, fair with ID
760 0713 KGU Honolulu HI fair with religious talk
760 0900 KFMB San Diego CA, good with ID between news items, News Every Half Hour And When It Happens On Talk Radio 760 KFMB
830 0712 KHVH Honolulu HI, poor hard to listen to under hash
850 0823 KOA Denver CO good talk back Phil Hendrie with discussion on drugs heroin
1020 0710 KTNQ Los Angeles CA, good with SS talk
1050 0755 KNBR/KTCT San Meteo CA, Fox Sports Radio good with phone in sports talk show armchair level at times!
1060 0915 CKMX Calgary AB, good with C&W ID as AM 1060 Classic Country
1070 0705 KNX Los Angeles CA, very good with news and bushfire talk
1150 0750 KTLK Los Angeles CA, good with ‘Talk AM 1150’ ID and talk program
1180 0745 VOA Marathon FL, Radio Marti, fair with SS vocals
1310 0740 KMKY Oakland CA, fair with Disney programming
1440 0700 KUHL Santa Maria CA, good with ID and sports talk
1500 0650 KUMU Honolulu HI, good with sports commentary
1520 0630 KOKC Oaklahoma City OK, very good with talk about hurricane Katrina 01/10
1540 0650 KXEL Waterloo IA, good with ID and talk program
1570 0720 XERF Mexico, excellent strength with SS vocals
1580 0645 KMIK Tempe AZ, good with Disney and mixing with KBLA
1580 0725 KBLA Santa Monica CA, good SS music girl singing and not much fading
1660 0729 WWRU Jersey City NJ, fair ethnic talk, assume it’s this no id
1670 0650 KHPY Moreno Valley CA, fair to good at times with SS talk
John Smith, Drake R8A 50 foot ewe
Ray Crawford, Icom IC-R75 50 foot ewe with pre amp
