Good old days

[n2avh]

Maybe it's the alcohol speaking (of course it is!), but if anyone wants to talk about the good old days of SWDX, back when there was actual DX, I thought I'd open this thread. Especially if you can find yourself in old editions of Frendx (https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-DX/NASWA_Frendx.htm), or maybe even Speedx although to me that was some bizarre parallel universe that I knew nothing about, except that it existed. I started in SW DXing when I was 9, back in 1973, and was very active into the late 1980s with occasional bursts in the 1990s.

[BoomboxDX]

I remember SW from the late 70's through today. Less stations today, of course, and ionospheric conditions aren't quite what they were in prior decades, even during this solar maximum. But, on average, the radios are better, with the advent of DSP in the early 2010's. DSP has pretty much saved the SWL hobby.

There still is DX, although it's different, obviously. But it's still cool to hear Kashgar, Urumchi, Botswana, Swaziland or Madagascar here in the PNW US.

[n2avh]

I never did much DXing above 6200 except for the occasional stray Bolivian or Peruvian, and it's the tropical bands where the real collapse has been.  China and the Koreas keep things crowded enough above that (and they're way over half the total presence below that, paltry as it is), but the fun factor in those is pretty low. Certainly there are plenty of European private and pirate stations, but listening to hobbyists isn't the same as listening to stations that didn't exist for my listening but that of real everyday listeners.  I can't judge propagation then vs. now because the radios and what's out there to hear has changed so much, but as a tropical bands DXer sunspot maximums never mattered much to me--winter was what mattered! 

[autovon]

Thanks for sharing this great resource.

[WPE6HET]

I've been DXing and SWLing since 1967. My first QSL was from the Voice of America in Dixon, California. The SW bands, of course, abounded with stations and relays, making it challenging to catch non-international broadcasters. "Border Radio" was popular, and catching the high-powered MW border stations in Mexico was fun. Verifying the VOA relay stations was enjoyable, too, as was chasing the tropical bands for Central and South America. I signed up for my Popular Electronics monitor certificate in 1968, and so I'm still WPE6HET.  BTW, the old back issues of Popular Electronics can be viewed on the worldradiohistory website cited above.

I didn't listen to pirates before 2001, when regular SW broadcasting gradually dwindled and the international stations signed off. Now they are a major draw! The quieter bands have enabled interesting catches, like BBC and Radio Free Asia from the Middle East and the Philippines. There are some newer stations. Radio Channel 292 in Germany for example.

[Robot Matrix]

My first exposure to SW was a Science Fair AM Short Wave Radio 28-176 from Radio Shack I bought in 1984-85 when I was 10 or 11. I picked up VOA, the Russian Woodpecker, broadcasts from all over the world, and weird signals that sounded like an old metal window fan or a C-130 (probably wideband digital). I was hooked!

As a child radio tinkerer with lots of RS kits, I pulled a loopstick coil halfway off the ferrite bar on an AM Radio and started hearing hams (probably 160m AM'ers), numbers stations, and other SW signals. Little did I know back then, that I changed the inductance of the LC tank circuit, thereby changing the frequency range of the radio.

Later, I bought a Knight-Star Roamer from a retired CB repair man, whom i had bought CB's from prior. This greatly expanded any SW range of frequencies prior to what I had. PLUS, being able to receive SSB/CW signals, and NDB's in the LF/MF bands. I had that for YEARS, and this and all prior gear was bought with lawn mowing money (except a couple kits I got for a birthday or Christmas). But, by my late teens stopped using it because I bought a Realistic DX-390.

At this point (in the 90's), I was buying Popular Communications magazines and others, where I first got exposed to pirate radio (which you can see on that website posted above... thanks!). I had a hard time picking them up... maybe on occasion but always weak. It would be much later I had any luck on that.

I wish I still had my logs of SW and other bands from when I was a kid and a teenager, much less the kits and radios. I never did send off for QSL's back then,  though I should've.

Anyway, thanks for the alcohol influenced topic... having a brew myself right now. But I have fond memories of my journey with all things radio and love  reminiscing. Thanks!

[East Troy Don]

While new SW DX'ers are welcome to our wonderful world hobby I feel some sorrow for them as they will never experience how great it used to be - Radio Damascus, Radio Moscow, Radio Norway, etc. with clear blowtorch signals targeting the Western hemisphere.   
Where's a good Cold War when you need one?!

[Rob.]

I started young, too, about 7-8 yrs old. First station was on my grandmother's SW portable was CFCF in Canada on 6005 kHz. I listened to it a lot and I was hooked. Often listened to the classical music program on Deutsche Welle late at night while trying to sleep. Listening to R. Moscow made you feel like the govt was going to knock on your door at any minute. . Was into listening to the tropical stations in the 90m and 60m bands, loved the music. Listened to a lot of 75m AM ham stations (no BFO on the radio at the time although I eventually built one).


I then got into utility and pirate listening. Then scanner monitoring, then CB, then ham radio. All this lead to a career in electronics in one form or another.


I am now in a location where I have decent HF reception and a good antenna so I share this publicly on my KiwiSDRs. I enjoy this because there have been so many new listeners that have thanked me for getting them interested in SW listening and many have purchased their own equipment. Things have changed a lot on the air and it is too bad we didn't have today's technology back then when there was a ton of stations still on the air.




 

[NJQA]

Back in the seventies, several of us teenage SWLs visited a older guy near Baltimore.  He brought out an old wire (yes, wire not magnetic tape) recorder and played SW station IDs from the thirties and forties.  Wow.  I was floored at the exotic DX and the fact that the signals sounded so good.  Sure wish I had a mp3 of it today!

It never occurred to me that the stuff I heard every day back then would be similarly “exotic” one day, as SW broadcasters shut down.  Now I wish I had made my own recordings during the seventies.

[Ct Yankee]

With one TV and 4 younger siblings within 9 years of me, I was frequently relegated to the radio for baseball play by play.  In addition there was a lot less baseball on TV in the 60's and 70's.  My parents took notice and bought me the pictured multi band radio for Christmas 1969 (I was 12).  It worked great for DXing baseball for transmissions emanating from Minnesota and eastward.  I even found that AFRTS transmitted a game nightly taking the visiting team's feed.

I had started experimenting with the radio's whip antennas and limited SW bands, I was in awe of what I received.  One day I hooked the receiver to the wiring for the TV antenna atop the house, I have been hooked ever since.

[Synclair]

Those were the days! I first discovered S radio on my sisters old tube (valve) radio - don't know the make or model. It had a broken tuning scale, so I had to put my hand in the back and tune blind. The number of times I got a shock from the HT line when I wasn't careful, I can't count. I remember, though, catching some gems. Radio Madagascar, Havanna, Tirana, Budapest, Bucarest were some I remember. I didn't ask for QSL cards because I had no idea what frequency I was tuned to. That must have been around summer 1973.

It wasn't until the following year when I got a pocket radio for my birthdat and discovered MW radio proper. I had, of course, listened to Radio 1 etc. but one day I came across a strange station in English I had never heard. It was RNI (Radio Northsea International). It was afternoon when I first heard it but that got me thinking - what else is out there? The rest is history, it set me on a long-time hobby of hunting for stations that few in my town hwd wcer heard of, let alone listened to. Happy days.

I do feel disappointed for those just entering the world of DX. Yes, there are still gems to be found on SW and MW, but with all the noise from WiFi, washing machines and - the bane of my life; fridges, it is a much more challenging hobbie than it was back in the day. I tend to hover around the lower broadcast bands - MW, 75, 60, 49 metre bands and rarely go above 31 metres.

I now have a number or receivers but, not being as mobile as I used to be, stick mainly with SDR, occasionally using my QODOSEN DX-286 or XDATA D-808. I use an ad-hoc antenna - just two long wires for ant and ground about 22 metres each, which serves me well.

[osiris]

With one TV and 4 younger siblings within 9 years of me, I was frequently relegated to the radio for baseball play by play.  In addition there was a lot less baseball on TV in the 60's and 70's.  My parents took notice and bought me the pictured multi band radio for Christmas 1969 (I was 12).  It worked great for DXing baseball for transmissions emanating from Minnesota and eastward.  I even found that AFRTS transmitted a game nightly taking the visiting team's feed.

I had started experimenting with the radio's whip antennas and limited SW bands, I was in awe of what I received.  One day I hooked the receiver to the wiring for the TV antenna atop the house, I have been hooked ever since.

I had one very similar to that. It was branded Overture and it was a solid radio. Had a heck of a speaker in it.