CLE186 - Perils of Perseus

ZVR - 368 Vancouver -  Middle Marker Rnwy 08R - reported as far as California

Now that CLE186 has come and gone, worldwide results will soon be posted by e-mail (to all those submitting reports) as well as to the CLE website. CLE organizer and data-cruncher Brian Keyte (G3SIA), indicates that 50 logs (and over 2,000 reports) have been submitted, including two first-timers - Graham (VE3GTC) near Ottawa, ON and Hans (BX2ABT) in Taiwan. It's always great to see new activity, especially on LF!

As is usually the case with CLE's, propagation conditions begin to deteriorate shortly after the announcement of the upcoming event. By the weekend's arrival, conditions are usually much worse than earlier in the week and such was the case once again! In North America, lightning activity and mediocre propagation dominated the three-night event, with the consensus of opinion giving the nod to Saturday night and early Sunday morning as being the best period.

Courtesy: http://www.lightningmaps.org/

Here on Mayne Island, Friday night was pretty much a wash and only the stronger signals made it through the din and into the log. A twilight check on Saturday evening indicated improving propagation and less lightning, renewing optimism that the entire weekend would not be a wipeout.


Since purchasing the Perseus SDR earlier this year, I have been using it exclusively for the past few CLE's. I have been exploiting one of it's main features....the ability to record the entire band overnight and then tune through the band the next day, as in real time. I no longer had to prop my eyelids open until 0100 or later, or to leave a sound sleep to journey out to a cold shack to hunt the pre-sunrise band for anything new....yes, Perseus has made it possible to DX while I sleep!

Now the very concept of this horrifies many of the 'purists' and I myself held-out for several years before venturing over to the darkside...but...embracing new technology along with its associated new learning is what is important. If I get to sleep-in because of it, even better!

So....that's the way it is supposed to work, but due to operator error, Perseus failed to launch on Saturday night, and the best conditions of the CLE were missed altogether. Having seen the error in my ways, the perils of Perseus will, hopefully, not strike again!

Conditions on Sunday night were noisy once again, although not as bad as Friday, and the following log was gathered after parsing through my overnight recordings.

                                     09 27 0400 350 NY  Enderby, BC
                            09 29 0900 350 OKT  Yoakum, TX
                            09 29 0700 350 RG  Oklahoma City, OK
                            09 27 0400 350 SWU  Idaho Falls, ID
                            09 29 0900 350 VTR  McGrath, AK
                            09 29 0800 351 YKQ Wasaganish, QC
                            09 27 1330 353 AL  Walla Walla, WA
                            09 29 0800 353 CY  Cheyenne, WY
                            09 29 0800 353 DI  Dickinson, ND
                            09 29 0800 353 IN  International Falls, MN
                            09 27 1330 353 LLD Lanai, HI
                            09 29 0800 353 PG  Portage, MB
                            09 27 0400 353 RNT  Renton, WA
                            09 27 1330 353 ZXY  Whitehorse, YT
                            09 29 1100 355 AUB  King Salmon, AK
                            09 29 0800 355 YWP  Webequie, ON
                            09 27 0700 356 MEF  Medford, OR
                            09 29 0700 356 ODX  Ord, NE
                            09 27 0700 356 ON  Penticton, BC
                            09 27 1330 356 PND  Portland, OR
                            09 27 0700 356 ZF  Yellowknife, NT
                            09 29 0800 356 ZXE  Saskatoon, SK
                            09 27 0400 358 SIT  Sitka, AK
                            09 27 1300 359 BO  Boise, ID
                            09 27 0500 359 SDY  Sidney, MT
                            09 27 1300 359 YAZ  Tofino, BC
                            09 29 0800 359 YQZ  Quesnel, BC
                            09 29 0800 360 SW  Warroad, MN
                            09 29 0900 361 E3  Wabasca, AB
                            09 29 0800 361 HI  Holman, NT
                            09 29 1000 362 6T  Foremost, AB
                            09 27 1300 362 BF  Seattle, WA
                            09 29 0800 362 CD  Chadron, NE
                            09 29 0600 362 RPX  Roundup, MT
                            09 29 0800 362 YZS  Coral Harbour, NU
                            09 29 0800 364 4D  Helmet, BC
                            09 27 1100 365 AA  Fargo, MN
                            09 29 0800 365 DPY  Deer Park, WA
                            09 29 0800 365 HQG  Hugoton, KS
                            09 29 0800 365 MA  Mayo, YT
                            09 29 0800 366 YMW  Maniwaki, QC
                            09 29 0800 368 ZP  Sandspit, BC
                            09 27 1330 368 ZVR  Vancouver, BC

I have, over the years, logged all of these beacons before, except for one..."OKT" in Yoakum, Texas...new catches are always nice and are harder to find  it seems. The Google Map's 'street view' shows what appears to be a nice top-loaded "T" antenna at OKT:

Courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps/

My CLE186 beacons - Courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps/

It was nice to salvage Sunday night but I'm still a little bummed about missing the best night of the weekend...at least I had a good night's sleep.