DXing.info presents
Mullimburra Point DXpedition July / August 2010
Once again, Craig, Phil and I had put our heads together, coordinated our schedules and undertaken a cosmos-wide Google search to plan our yearly DXpedition and blokey weekend away. Following some discussion last year, we decided to give the South Coast a try. Accordingly Google was googled, Google Earth consulted and a suitable location at MullimburraPoint, south of Moruya, was chosen.
Mullimburra Cottage is a beach house on 2 ha, set on a rural subdivision and only 500m or so from the sea. It is rather less spartan than the Tuckers Rocks location and is rather more private as well - we just dread the ‘what are you up to?’ scenario!!! The answer is always CIA, ASIO.....take your pick of acronyms. Theother advantage is that the travel time is considerably less so we can arrive with plenty of time to pick up essentials (a slab, scotch and Coke ...) and throw up some antennas of various types.
DAY 1
We left early on the Monday and were on site around mid-afternoon even with a leisurely stop for lunch along the way. There is lots of wildlife to be seen here, and we were greeted by the resident wallabies as soon as we got to the front gate. First order of business was the wire in the sky. Lots of trees were conveniently spaced about the place and there was plenty of room for me to erect a phased K9AY array. This, incidentally, gave the other two much amusement watching me scratch my head and tear my hair out trying to get it to work! Finally we also erected a large EWE and ran about 300m of wire to the east through the bushland across the road. Skippy was here in large numbers and we hoped that the antennas would remain intact. Some hope – our length of wire ended up in about 20 separate pieces in the end.
Upon switching on, we found R. Tarana strong even at 0530, well before sunset, with the stronger US stations heard at the sunset peak. Notable was the strength of R.Marti on 1180, easily separable from the Australians. In addition there were a couple of very interesting Spanish speaking stations to be heard lower on the band but unfortunately they faded before any IDs were heard. Craig scored R.Ondas de Sur Oriente on 5015 as well as Mauritania on 7245 via the long path. An early night was finally the order of things, as it had been a long day since we left home.
Day 2
We woke to a beaut sunny day and the anticipation of heaps of DX to come. Over breakfast Craig was well into the morning Brazilians on 60, 49, 25 and 31 metres making their only appearance during the trip. Some time was spent doing a more thorough job on the antennas before departing for lunch at Moruya and a general look at the area. Not many old radios in the visited junk shops though!
Later, the 60 m.Africans were notable for a very late evening fade-out (nearly midnight) while MW was mediocre with only the stronger regulars making much of a showing at all. As you would expect, New Zealanders were strong, often dominating their frequencies in the early evening hours.
The antennas had remained intact overnight despite the 10 kangaroos we found having breakfast in the front yard upon arising. Our day-trip was south, to the historic village of Tilba Tilba, still known for its cheese factory and now also for the craft and gift shops awaiting the unwary tourist. A great fish and chip lunch (despite having to fend off the resident Magpie), a stroll up the street to the cheese factory (where the local product was sampled and purchased) and the purchase of gifts for our other halves occupied us quite well until we headed back to the dials once more.
Nice loggings of KTKZ 1380, KKEA 1420, KHPY 1690 and KREA 1540 were made. On SW, DRM was the flavour of the day with Craig achieving reception of New Zealand, Deutsche Welle and Radio National de Espana. It was quite interesting to see the station name come up on screen, and had a decent set of speakers been available, the audio quality would have been quite good.
Day 4
We awoke to a showery, damp morning, but this did not deter us from turning south once more for our day-trip. This time it was to Tuross Heads and Wallaga Lake, scene of Craig’s DX exploits in times past. Another beaut fish and chip lunch was enjoyed at Bermagui and we undertook a fruitless search for Horse Head Rock ... was this to be the southern equivalent of the Great Koala Search of Tuckers Rocks? It seems so, even though we had the advantage of daylight to find it!
MW was not really inspiring this evening eitherthough, of course, the higher power stations could be heard. In general, things came up briefly before fading down again, so patience was needed. On SW, Craig crawled out of a warm bed at around 1800 to log various Ethiopian outlets as well as Uganda on 4750 with Africans in general being quite good.
Day 5
Our last day. The morning was spent walking, reading in the sun or drinking coffee as our individual inclinations took us. Luckily we were adjacent to a National Park that provided plenty of opportunity for walking, photography or just the enjoyment of a number of beaches. A quick trip to the wilds of Congo, lunch at Moruya and a fantastic swamp to photograph occupied us till 0500 or so. It was of interest to see traces of R.Tarana carrier on Spectran at 2pm local time but, of course, no audiountilmuch later.
MW was a disappointment with not even KMIK 1580 or XERF 1570 to be heard – it’s a bit rough when even the marker stations are absent!! Craig however, was pleased with the good crop of Brazilians early in the evening, the now seldom-heard South African Home Service on 7285 and Guinea 7215 at armchair level.
All in all, a great week away playing radios and listening someplace different. Mullimburra Cottage has all the creature comforts we expect these days, room for antennas of varioustypes and is fairly secluded as well. We did view the power lines with some trepidation, but in general most noise came from things like our mobile phone chargers and the air conditioning, all of which were under our control. There was some electric fence noise but that is what noise blankers are for. Receivers used were NRD 515 and 525, Icom R71A and R75 and Racal RA6790.