Are We Having Fun Yet?© 1993 by T. J. "Skip" Arey N2EI Each new radio season brings the hope of bagging that station that has eluded me through the years. Once again I will sit, bleary eyed, late into the winter night in hopes of catching KFI, Los Angeles, California 640 kHz. Who knows, this could be the year. WHAT'S THE POINT SKIP??? The point is that KFI is a hard but far from impossible East Coast DX catch. The point is that staying up well past midnight on a Sunday evening with the prospect of facing work on Monday morning just doesn't hold the allure it once had so many years ago. The point is that catching KFI would be a great achievement, it just wouldn't be all that much fun. No doubt, over the last few years I have not spent as many late nights hunched over the dials as I once did. Admitting this will no doubt cause my effigy to be burned at several DXer gatherings. The assembled self-proclaimed Dxperts will say "How dare Skip say such things? Hobbyists should be taught to sacrifice to become great DXers like us!" and further call for my head on a spit. My advice to these folks is simple . . . A lot of folks write me after they have been involved in the hobby for about a year or so and tell me that they are getting "burnt out". The endless stream of technology and information that our hobby presents tends to frighten more than a few beginners away. These folk's fears are not helped in the least by a small but prominent group of DXperts that populate many radio hobby publications and gatherings, putting forth the notion that you can only "enjoy" the radio hobby if you have several thousand dollars worth of equipment and devote countless hours to study. I know one guy who has worked his way through three wives in pursuit of DXellence. I'm not sure a hobby is worth such a cost. But then again, I've never played golf. A hobby is supposed to be something that takes a person away from the stresses of the "real" world of work and responsibility. A hobby is something you do for a few hours each week to rest, relax and recreate. However, many hobbies, radio included, can involve the hobbyist to the point that they become as intense as all those things he or she took up the hobby to get away from. Beginners are especially susceptible to this trap. So I would like to share a list of tips to avoid turning the radio hobby into another one of life's pressure cookers. YOU CAN LISTEN TO ANYTHING YOU WANT TO. When you realize that the monitoring hobby includes the possibility of tuning in to thousands of frequencies in order to listen to communications from hundreds of countries in any one of a dozen or so modes, it's a wonder that we can listen to anything at all. To get any enjoyment you will have to narrow your focus a bit. I call this the stamp collector's system. Few stamp collectors spend their time blindly filling books with the thousands of stamps that the world has to offer. Doing so would not be a pleasurable experience. Instead, it would be more akin to drudgery. Most stamp collectors settle in on a few areas of personal interest. It may be stamps of a certain group of countries, stamps from a particular era or stamps that all share a particular design (for example radios). Beginning radio monitors will first want to dial around to get a notion of all the wonderful signals there are to listen to. But continued happiness will be found, for most folks, by settling in on areas of listening interest. You may enjoy Shortwave Broadcast but not be particularly interested in Utility monitoring. You may like to listen in on aircraft but not have much desire to follow the other things you can hear on your scanner. And of course there are no rules to say that you can't change your mind down the log. It ain't nobody's business but your own, Compadre! Radio monitoring is a vast smorgasbord and its perfectly okay to eat dessert first. The point is to have fun! SO MANY FREQUENCIES One of the first hurdles beginners have to hop over is that radio monitoring is not a simple as flipping on the car radio on the way to work. For that matter, when you go to work may even have a profound effect on how you go about enjoying the radio hobby. Many of the signals folks like to monitor can be heard better or worse depending on the time of day. This is due to signal propagation, the science behind how a signal travels through the atmosphere between two points. You simply can't fight propagation. Also, it is unlikely that you will ask for a shift change at work just to pursue that elusive signal from Radio Freedonia. Only you will know what portion of the day you may have to spend relaxing with the radio hobby. This information, coupled with some propagation information will help you settle on those bands of frequencies that will yield the most signals. If the time you have to devote to radio monitoring falls outside of optimum long distance propagation, you may have to find your fun in the world of shorter haul communications. Some shortwave signals will be available at anytime of the day, you simply need to put your listening time into the right frequencies. Scanner monitors find their fun right around the corner. Any VHF/UHF scanner will yield plenty of listening excitement that is not nearly as dependent on propagation as shortwave monitoring. The point is that monitoring frequencies that are optimum to the time you are able to listen will greatly reduce the frustration factor. TO DX OR NOT TO DX DXing, the ability to monitor signals over great distances, is always a combination of skill, art, persistence and most of all luck. Some hobbyists derive a great deal of pleasure from catching a signal from a station half way around the world. Chasing DX may be fun in and of itself, but it is often made more enjoyable when it is a means to an end. The programming that those far off stations send out is usually quite interesting. While we are on the subject, last time I checked, it wasn't carved in stone anywhere that a radio hobbyist must chase DX to be a person of worth. There are hundreds of countries that broadcast programming directed at you, the overseas listener. Many folks spend their entire radio hobby career monitoring the powerful international shortwave broadcasters. Listening to radio stations from far off lands is a great way to get to know the world around you. So don't get caught up in just filling your log with new contacts. Take some time to relax and enjoy what you're hearing as well. I'm of the school that believes that DX is any signal you never heard before. It doesn't matter one wit if it is 5 or 5000 miles away. As a radio monitor you are an explorer. The excitement of exploring new territory is wherever you choose to find it. Remember, there is no rush folks! Just enjoy listening to your receiver, taking in the world around you at whatever speed is comfortable to you. If you remain curious in your listening, over time, the "big" DX will eventually find its way to your antenna. AVOID INFOGLUT Thanks to vast developments in technology, it is possible to acquire large amounts of data very quickly by way of the Internet. Personal computers also allow the radio hobbyist to manage and massage this data in countless ways. Computers can even interface directly with many modern receivers. The price we pay for this technological convenience is that we can quickly become buried under a pile of data. Never forget that the hobby is supposed to be radio monitoring and not data management. Having a load of data at your fingertips can be either an aid or a burden, it's up to you. Remember when I said earlier to take your time and listen to your radio at your own speed? If you want to avoid infoglut, you will have to do the same thing with data. For most beginners, just tuning around will keep you on the edge of your seat with plenty of great listening targets. Over time, Internet resources and the addition of books like Passport to Worldband Radio and The World Radio TV Handbook will round out your information tools. Scanner users can get most of what they need from frequency sites such as www.radioreference.com. If the quantity of data has you overwhelmed, it is of little use to you anyway. So throttle back and acquire the information at a speed that won't turn your hobby into a chore. Remember, the best way to eat an apple is one bite at a time. (Or byte, as the case may be.) PUT COMPETITION INTO PERSPECTIVE Many radio hobby clubs run various contests or, at least, publish lists of their member's QSL totals. These activities can be great fun. They can also serve to give folks an inferiority complex. When you look at the contest totals, remember that the "winners" may be folks that have a great deal of time to devote to participating in such contests. Not everyone can put the real world on hold long enough to be among the highest scoring folks in radio contests. Still, it can be fun to compete on your own level. As long as you realize that you are doing your best, be proud of your contest accomplishments. It's just a game. Nobody ever got rich and famous winning a monitoring contest. So relax and enjoy it for the sport of it. The only person you have to impress is yourself. Likewise, do not be overly concerned about the large QSL totals that you might see published in club journals. Those folks whose names appear high on these lists have often been involved in the hobby for decades. Be willing to give yourself the same advantage of time and your personal successes will be just as great. Most beginners start off with a flourish and log between twenty and fifty countries in quick succession.. After that, things tend to slack off at a fairly rapid rate. Don't be discouraged. You will find a great deal of enjoyment monitoring those more familiar frequencies while you are taking the time to catch that next country. Don't just sit there with static coming out of the speaker. Sit back and enjoy a program on the BBC or Radio Canada Internatinal. Relax!!! Have fun folks. That's what it's all about. Back |