Introduction:
The Long Beach Island DXpeditions (LBI-DXP)
Long Beach Island, on the southern
coast of New Jersey in the United States, has been
the site of a weekend medium wave-oriented DXpedition
held every autumn since 2002. Started by several
East-coast DXers, it has attracted attendees from
Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
The DXpedition is held in a beachfront motel in
the town of Ship Bottom NJ, approximately 30 miles
north of Atlantic City and 50 miles east of Philadelphia
PA.
![Map of Long Beach Island](../photos/usa_longbeachisland_2004_LBImap.gif)
Location of the LBI DXpeditions |
Long Beach Island itself is a
very narrow strip of land about 1 mile off the coast
and features a state park and famous Barnegat lighthouse
at its northern tip. The island is a popular resort
in the summer for nearby New York City and Philadelphia
residents, but in November many fishermen can still
be seen casting their rods into the surf in search
of bluefish, stripers, and other catches. The Drifting
Sands Motel, our "DX Inn", is a popular
location since it's one of the few beachfront accommodations
on the island. The Drifting Sands remains open all
year, and underwent extensive renovations in 2004
including the addition of Internet access in the
room. Several nearby restaurants, a convenience
store, and the all-important Radio Shack (about
six miles away) means that we don't have to sacrifice
comfort in search of exotic DX opportunities!
![Motel](../photos/usa_longbeachisland_2004_dxinn.jpg)
The Drifting Sands Motel,
Ship Bottom NJ |
The location of the motel allows
us to deploy beverage antennas on the beach in a
roughly north-south configuration. The DX rooms
are about 125 feet from the beach, and we run coax
feed lines from the rooms to the antennas via a
wooden "boardwalk" (New Jersey has strict
laws prohibiting walking on the dunes). The antenna
wires run in both directions along the base of the
wooden fence that follows the dunes. The northern
beverage-on-the-ground, or BOG (40 degrees), points
directly at the Canadian Maritimes then on to Europe,
giving us access to the Middle East and Northern
Africa. The southern BOG (220 degrees) points to
Central America, giving us coverage of the Caribbean
and South America. Since many of the attendees use
phasing devices like the MFJ-1025 and Quantum phasers,
we also run a shorter "noise" wire parallel
to one of the beverages. The length of the BOGs
has ranged from 500-1400 feet over the years, and
is somewhat restricted by the number of vehicle
beach access points that the wires have to cross
- each crossing means extensive digging to get the
wires deep enough not to be disturbed by the weight
of the 4-wheel drive vehicles churning through the
sand. Total time to deploy the receiving location,
including unpacking the equipment and running the
antenna wires, averages about two hours not including
the time we stop to explain to the local fishermen
(or police!) what we were doing.
![Walking along the beverage](../photos/usa_longbeachisland_2004_walking.jpg)
Bob Stonier and Russ Edmunds
inspect the beverage-under-the-sand |
We have experimented with several
antenna termination techniques over the years, ranging
from an ill-fated attempt at driving a ground rod
into the sand to the use of a single ground wire
extended off the end of the BOG. We have found the
best technique to be a "fan" of three
20-foot long radials attached to the far end of
each beverage through a 300 ohm resistor. The reception
pattern of each antenna definitely favors the direction
they are pointed, so the termination obviously has
some effect. The effectiveness of using variable
resistors to "tune" the termination has
been never been proven worth the time and trouble.
![Dunes](../photos/usa_longbeachisland_2004_dune.jpg)
Beverage antennas run
along the fence at the base of the dunes |
In 2004 we added a Mark Connelly-designed
rotatable six-foot broadband loop to the mix of
antennas. While the strength of the signals from
the loop was much lower than the beverages, it was
better able to reject domestic stations and provide
clearer reception of the Middle East and Europe.
In 2005, we added a DX Engineering RPA-1 amplifier
(recommended by Mark) to the BBL, and were quite
happy with the combination.
We also added a sloper, stretching
from a third floor room to the beach and aimed towards
Africa, but didn't see any appreciable reception
in the intended direction; this could be due to
the fact that the feed point was at the high end
of the antenna. We will likely not be using it at
future DXpeditions.
Each year's LBI-DXP has yielded
very different results due to atmospheric conditions.
Propagation at LBI-1 in 2002 (a one-night stand)
was very auroral, so few trans-atlantic stations
were heard. However Caribbean, southern US and Latin
American logs abounded (including one from Panama).
![Loop](../photos/usa_longbeachisland_2004_bbl.jpg)
Mark Connelly-designed 6-foot broadband loop |
In 2003, the DXpedition expanded
to two nights (Friday through Sunday), no TA's came
in, and we were again limited to stations in the
western hemisphere (including four different RJR
frequencies from Jamaica). LBI-3 was the real breakout
year - lots of strong European higher latitude TA
receptions, and a tentative logging of Iran. The
2005 DXpedition also yielded numerous trans-atlantic
stations including lower-latitude Europeans, Djibouti,
United Arab Emirates, and a tentative Albania. See
the logs from each year for more details on what
was heard.
While LBI-DXP is fairly young
compared to other established DXpeditions, we enjoy
the camaraderie and opportunities for sharing knowledge
that come from spending a weekend together each
year dedicated to the hobby of medium-wave DXing,
and look forward to future years LBI-DXP.
Published on December
13, 2005
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