Travel to Talsari was smooth, comfortable and hassle free compared to the traumatic journey of the last DX ped. In the Toyota SUV we chatted DX from the first minute and reached Talsari some 220 km away from Kolkata on the east coast on Bay of Bengal with a breakfast stop en route . The venue was my choice because the Accacia trees next to the Orissa Tourism Guest House by the sea beach looked promising enough to be able to string long wire beverages comfortably. I was there on a scouting trip some months back but I had not carried any radio set and therefore could not check the radio signals. That is why I had kept my fingers crossed. Immediately after our late lunch at 3.00 pm we got down to stringing the antennas. In one hour we had three antennas up - two 110 m in south east and south south east direction and one 4oo m long wire in the north east direction.
Click on the image to enlarge
We were lucky to be able to book three rooms in this busy holiday weekend. However, we all huddled up in one room; the other room was set aside for the suitcases and beds to relax. The listening room which was set up as a shack with a row of tables lined up as listening desk with the beds in the centre of the room to relax. By 6 pm we were by our sets. Lo, who greeted us - all the 120 mb Australians 2310, 2325, 2485 kHz were already in medium strength and carried on through most of the night with just one lull period in between. Our favorite check station AFN Diego Garcia 4319 USB was booming in local quality signals. The Family radio stations from Taiwan in mw started coming in from midnight. As expected by late night at 2100 UTC we had short window of Philippines on mw when a number of them streamed in with their morning greetings chatter. Then came in the whispering PNGs. Somewhat later there were a host of Thai medium waves in the band.
Scare of antenna loss
After the first night of our DXing as we were scouting the copper wire antenna, we found that some one had tampered with it. The antenna at the far end had been taken off and was coiled and kept at the base of a tree. A gentleman from the adjacent fishing village cleared the mystry for us. Some one was trying to pilfer the wire but the villagers prevented him from doing so. How did the villagers know? While booking we had sent in an official request to be allowed to string wires for our DX pedition. That letter meant that the OTDC guest house authorities were alerted. The employees who came in from the surrounding villages also knew about this unusual group of visitors who would string wires and listen at night from the Radio. We were thankful that we had written to the authorities early. In 1984 we had lost a whole length of beverage to thieves because we had not alerted the authorities of Chandipur OTDC.
On the second day morning Alokesh tuned in to the Ham bands to receive Jose Jacob VU2JOS wishing our DXped all the best with greetings for each individual participants. There was much excitement in the room when this greetings came through. On the second night we had a disaster. A local noise, probably from the CVT in the TV set in the next room completely swamped the bands. Most of us retired early. Next day morning Partha Sarathi had to leave because he had not planned for the third day and did not have leave from his office. In the morning we set up yet another long wire – a GI wire directed South South West. A multiband dipole connected to a 75 ohms coax was also put up in the roof of the Guest House. The first success on the third day was from the dipole which pulled in Ulan Bator 12085 kHz very clear. Later in the evening after the usual Australian 120 mb stations, we could not believe our ears when we had Maldive through the South South West Antenna. It was initially mixing with AIRs on the same frequency but after AIR signed off Maldive in Divehi picked up strength reaching local quality by late night.
What did we do when we were not listening? There was lot of photo shoots – in the beach, at the shack, stringing the beverages, in the dining room and so on. The other times were spent chatting DXing hardware and software.
Back home I just got a phone call saying how he was missing the bands full of signals and there was no trace of the blaring Maldives !
RECEIVERS
- Ten Tec RX-320D SDR
- ICOM R75
- ICOM R71,
- Grundig YB400,
- SONY ICF7600,
- Degen 1102/1103/1121,
- Redsun RP2100
- RadioShack DX394
ANTENNAS
- Multiband Dipole
- 60 m Copper Beverage towards south south east (Babul Da's copper wire)
- 110 m Copper Beverage towards south east
- 400 m GI Beverage towards north east
- 110 m GI Beverage towards south south west
Attendees :
Babul Gupta, Kolkata
Sudipta Ghose, Kolkata
Dr.Supratik Sanatani, Kolkata
Swopan Chakraborty, Kolkata
Debanjan Chakraborty, Kolkata
Partha Sarathi Goswami, Siliguri
Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi
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Dr. Supratik Sanatani , Kolkata, India
6th January 2010
Comments/Suggestions to : athenaeye@gmail.com, talsaridxped@gmail.com
Header & Antenna Diagram designed by Babul Gupta
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