Too the wondering world

It looked like it would be two nights in a row that we were shut-out to ZM2E
but during the dawn twilight their signal suddenly rose out of the noise for
one complete "O" copy of their call. More interestingly, the signal was
heard on the big (quiet) vertical and nary a peep on the 10' loop. Not sure
what that is all about yet.

Reception time was from 1244Z through 1358Z. Please see the enclosed grab
taken at 1404UTC.  We noted what looked like the 'E' at the end of the
sequence and stumbled over our sleepy eyelids and rebuttled 'VA7LF Z E' as
the Sun started peaking through the clouds on the eastern horizon...

We have also noted an interesting corellation between the tides and our
impedance match. We now have a "HI TIDE" and a "LOW TIDE" tap which requires
young TIL to scramble down the cliff with mountain goat-like nimbleness in
the 0300 darkness and switch taps while I maintain vigilence by the
fireplace in the shack :-).

As a convenient 'visual' of our on-air status, we have also placed a 4'
fluorescent bulb, vertically near the antenna which throws an eery glow over
the entire area. I'm sure the several huge deep sea tankers going past us
every night are wondering about the new and unmarked light station at Tily
Point! This allows Scott to assume a horizontal polarization while
monitoring the station during the wee hours...

Some of the west coast ndb DXers have reported poor conditions to the south
Pacific over the past two mornings but much enhanced condx to the north
Pacific, Japan and Alaska. I'm not sure that there is too much corellation
between what is heard in the ndb band and 2200m but it does seem that we
have picked a period of rather dismal conditions towards ZL. The conditions
we observed this morning with the noise dropping to near daylight levels
seemed to directly correlate to sunrise over the US midwest where a nasty
looking cloud of lightning strikes was occuring all night... Hmmmm...

One more kick at the can tonight.

VA7LF / Steve / Scott