Miscou Island DXpedition 2006
September 14-22, 2006
Miscou 06 DXpedition has been
held from September 14th to 22nd in its usual location:
Miscou Island located at: 47d 59m 39.8s N 64d 32m
51.9s W
The participants this year were:
Ken Alexander, Jacques d'Avignon and Kevin Carey
from late September 14th for the duration, and Niel
Wolfish, September 17th to 21st. Kevin was back
after an hiatus of two years and Jacques after successfully
battling cancer in 2005. Brent Taylor could not
attend this year, as he was a candidate in the New
Brunswick provincial elections being held on September
18th.
Ken, Jacques and Niel each used
an AOR AR 7030+ receiver. Kevin used a Drake R8.
The weather conditions were warmer
this year compared to previous Miscou DXpeditions.
High winds were only prevalent on the Thursday afternoon
and Friday morning. In summary: very nice and warm
weather conditions with no appreciable rain or drizzle.
Antennas system
We had 2 EWE antennas (3m high
and 17m long each) optimized for the MW band and
pointing to Europe and Africa. One Wellbrook ALA
100 Large Aperture loop (20m in circumference) pointing
to Europe was also used. All antennas were quiet
on LW and MW.
Each antenna was feeding a four-port
Wellbrook antenna splitter so that each participant
could have access to any of the four antennas as
required and be totally isolated from the other
receivers. The EWEs were designed and erected to
effectively null the broadcast station located in
Caraquet about 10 miles away and the nulling was
very effective dropping the pest signal by at least
four S units. We used three ground rods for each
EWE and it made a major difference compared to a
single ground rod that we used during the original
installation.
Power line
noise
The noise that we
had experienced in 2004 was not present this year,
the power company having done a noise survey in
early 2005 and repaired what needed to be repaired
to quieten the noise. This maintenance work obviously
has stood up to the harsh salty and windy environment
of Miscou Is., as we had no power line noise at
all this year.
Summary of
LW monitoring at Miscou 06
The LW results of Miscou 06 were
not comparable to the results obtained prior to
2004. This year a few Canadian beacons located around
Hudson Bay and in Nunavut were heard, and a few
US beacons located in the closest states were heard.
As usual, a major irritant was the splatter from
the various DGPS stations located on the North American
East Coast, and possibly overseas, masking some
promising European marine beacon frequencies.
We heard one beacon on 410 kHz
with the ID LF8A; this appears to be the same type
of ID used by the oilrigs in the North Sea, but
we have not had a confirmation of it's identity.
The frequency is not one normally used by the oilrigs
but is the normal frequency for DFing. (If you know
what this beacon is and where it is located, we
would appreciate being advised via e-mail: monitor@igs.net)
Once again the NDBs located in
Iceland, Ireland, Britain and the Scandinavian countries
have eluded us probably due to the fact that the
European NDBs are using less power than the North
American beacons.
Again this year we experienced
the unusual phenomenon of the European and African
LW broadcasters audio appearing early local afternoon
(local time: UTC -3) for about 30 minutes, disappearing
for a few hours and then reappearing at a much higher
strength. We have noticed that there appears to
be no detectable correlation between this phenomenon
and the grey line or sunsets on both sides of the
Atlantic.
FAX and RTTY weather related
transmissions from CFH on 122.5 kHz were copied
using Kevin's computer. This is a first during a
Miscou DXpedition. Quality of reception of this
data was good to excellent depending on the time
of day.
Miscou
2006 LW loggings in Excel form
![Miscou 2006 LW logs](../images/miscou_2006_lw.gif)
Summary of
MW monitoring at Miscou 06
The collection of MW logs does
not appear to show many unusual logs in this part
of the spectrum. A station in the Netherlands on
1395 kHz was heard probably for the first time in
North America as it started its transmission on
19th of September. A Mexican X-bander was also heard
in the morning of the 21st.
Drift buoys
We also heard a plethora of "drift
net buoys" on CW between 1,710 and 2,000 kHz.
One was even audible during daylight hours. Why
do we still hear so many of them if drift net fishing
is supposed to be banned (or at least restricted)
by various treaties?
Summary
Miscou 06 was once again a very
restful Dxpedition and a good forum to exchange
ideas and debate various radio-related topics. The
2006 MW collection of logs is interesting and the
LW collection of logs is slightly disappointing,
but it would be dull if the logs were always numerous.
We now have 11 months to
prepare for Miscou 07 and Ken has the necessary
time to design a EWE for LW!
Miscou
2006 MW loggings in Excel form
![Miscou 2006 MW logs](../images/miscou_2006_mw.gif)
Posted on October
12, 2006
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