First Person DX'ing
February 1970 Popular Electronics

February 1970 Popular Electronics Table of Contents Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Popular Electronics, published October 1954 - April 1985. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.

'DXing' is amateur radio shorthand for long distance communications. While there is no formal exact distance beyond which an operator has officially made a 'long distance' contact, a generally accepted range is maybe 50 miles or so. To some extent, DX is relative to the equipment and power being used. For instance if you have a maximum legal transmitter output power of 1500 watts and an optimally sited, mounted and tuned, high gain antenna, with low loss transmission cable, and super sensitive receiver, etc., and make a successful contact 100 miles away, no one would give you kudos for your effort. However, if you managed the same result using a handheld transceiver with a 'rubber duck' stub antenna while walking through a deep valley, you would be considered a DX superman. This article describes a much more rare and difficult means of making DX contacts and collecting QSL cards - bodily travelling across the globe to visit other amateur radio operators at their home bases (although I'm not sure doing so qualifies for a QSL card unless radio contact is made).

First Person DX'ing

Mr. SWL - Arthur Cushen - Circles the Globe Visiting Broadcasters

(left) First of the ten international broadcasting stations visited by my wife, Ralda, and me was the VOA 250,000·watt installation at Dixon, Calif. We were interviewed for a VOA broadcast to Asia. The antenna site occupies 800 acres.

Radio Canada maintains an active club and our second interview was conducted by Elaine McMaster (club secretary) and Duncan Nicholson (club vice president). These interviews gave me an opportunity to tell listeners what it was like to DX on the shortwaves from New Zealand.

Arriving in England we were cordially greeted by the staff of the BBC. While in London I gave a first-hand report of New Zealand DX'ing to Henry Hatch, who moderates many of the World Radio Club programs. Since I am blind I did a program for "Radio 4" for blind listeners.

On to Denmark, only to be greeted by the sad news that Radio Denmark was considering cessation of its English-language programs. Christion Flagstad is addressing Ralda and me with Luise Berald and Dick Platt of Radio Denmark, right, joining the conversation.

At Halmstad, Sweden, the European DX Council held an International Parliament to discuss matters of common interest. At left is J. Vastenhoud of Radio Nederland; at right, renowned Radio Sweden Editor, Arne Skoog.

On our way home, we stopped at Radio RSA, Johannesburg, South Africa. We were interviewed again(!) by Dorianne Berry and Arthur Hanna, two more well known announcers. Unfortunately, these few photos cannot possibly show all the wonderful people we met nor express our deep thanks to all who were so cordial to us.

- Ralda and Arthur Cushen

Posted June 15, 2017