Way off topic I'm afraid

[OFF-TOPIC/ADMIN: Hans van den Boogert <hansfong@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Hello everyone,

I provoked quite a number of reactions with my remark about the CD Buena
Vista Social Club. It was way off topic, but then again for me music and
radio go hand in hand and more than often I have been able to gather
program details by recognizing local tunes heard from CDs or world music
radio programs.

I hope Risto will allow these kind of "tid-bits not quite related to DXing"
to be put on HCDX in the future too. I live a quite solitary life here in
Taiwan and for me contacts like the ones on HCDX are very important to me,
because that's where my friends are. 

To give you an idea about life here: they kicked all foreign stations (CNN,
MTV, NBC, CBS, Star) off the cable, except HBO; Time magazine is always a
week late; you can get every CD or magazine in the shop, but the problem is
you can never find it when you want it; my nearest friend lives one hour
away by scooter, two by car (hellish traffic here), etc. I rely on the BBC,
RNW and VoA plus the Internet for my news and DXing for my relaxation. I'm
not complaining, just saying how much I appreciate HCDX and to be able to
share something with you all

Hans van den Boogert - Taiwan

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My comments:

This is a difficult question. I have always wanted to keep signal to noise
ratio on the list high. Ie. to keep it as informative and high level as
possible. I admit that sometimes I have had trouble to decide is the email
really worth passing to the list because it hasn't been tightly related
to Hard-Core-DX topics.

DXing is not only radio though. Many DXers are interested in cultures of
foreign countries, music, solar activity etc. Someone could say about
solar activity related postings that those are not radio related topics.
But they are... aren't they because solar activity reflects to conditions
on bands? But so is cultures, politics and music of foreign countries... those
reflect to programming of radio stations.

So, I don't mind these off-topic postings. But I feel we need new category
for them. "OFF-TOPIC"... how about that. We can put postings that doesn't
really belong to other groups but are somehow linked to our hobby. Of course,
this doesn't mean that you can cover everything on the list from now on.
OFF-TOPIC postings still must have some kind of link to our hobby and
have general interest to all subscribers.

I don't expect very many emails to that category and if it seems that it will
go out of hand I will reconsider my decision about OFF-TOPIC category.

If you have any comments, let me know.

And thanks for comments about HCDX Hans... I am happy to hear that this 
list is useful for you. I enjoy hosting this list and work numerous
hours keeping it working as well and reliable as possible.

Risto

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