[HCDX]: ADMIN: What is HCDX

[Risto Kotalampi <risto@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks to everyone who replied to me and congratulated about the baby. I am going to reply all of you privately - if you haven't received your reply yet you should get it in next few days (I got tons of emails). 

I am doing one exception as Jorge is raising some interesting points and I want to comment those to everyone. His original email should arrive shortly (if not arrived yet). My reply has some philosophical things I have had time to think while staying in the hospital with my wife and son. It's also going to discuss some thoughts I have about HCDX. Just skip this email if you aren't interested in... and go back to your radio shack. This emails doesn't contain any news or loggings;)

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>I would like a further comment on this. I will expose the Nordic members 
>though: This is not a DX announcement, is this?. Why to post it here? 
>I remember with embarrasing that stupid quarrel between purist DXers (most=
> of 
>them from Finland and other Nordic countries) and "human DXers" from other=
>countries saying "thank you" to others, and being hit by those DXers.

One of the HCDX email list's goal has always been to be high signal to noise ratio source of the information. And frankly, all this meta discussion - including this email - don't improve that at all. That's why I have always tried to label my own announcement as "ADMIN" that doesn't usually contain anything from HCDX world.

This time I violated my own rules and posted "off-topic" email to the list. I probably would have blocked similar announcement from someone else if it wouldn't have been attached to some real HCDX related material (hint hint). But as an owner of whole Hard-Core-DX Service I felt I was privileged to pass this announcement to the list. I thought about sending it and decided that what the heck... it's my list and I can do it if I want so.

You are very right about the fact that DXers have life, too. I have always had a motto : "DXing is not a hobby, it's way of life". What this means in my opinion is that the life is DXing - DXing is life. Those things overlap and it's hard to draw a line between them. A good way to test if this is true with you is to stop listening (of course I don't recommend you to do it!) and then ask a question from yourself after few years if you are still a DXer or not. If you answer "No. I have stopped listening" - DXing wasn't your way of life. But if you will answer, "Yes, of course I am but I just haven't had time to listen lately", it certainly is your way of life. For example, I haven't actively been listening to MW/SW for about 5-6 years but I still consider myself 100% DXer... It's not something you can just quit and leave behind. You always have the idea of becoming active again once you just find some time. It's way of life.

Problem with combining these things with Hard-Core-DX emailing list is very difficult. I want to keep the list as high quality list with as less "noise" as possible. This is why I really don't encourage anyone to send similar announcements to the list, or just simple "Thank you" emails (do those privately please). So, I really want to keep this list as pure Hard-Core-DX as possible. I made an exception in my own case but I think I was entitled to it.

I don't want to push these things totally out of HCDX. I don't consider HCDX to be just this list. Of course it's the most visible part of it but I have always talked about Hard-Core-DX Service, not only the email list. And what I see as "the service" is anything we can invent to make Internet help DXing. The email list was the first service but we shouldn't stop to that. Also, if we take HCDX out of the medium I see HCDX as a community that can together make Internet work for them as well as possible. This is HCDX's origin... how can we make Internet to serve DXers as well as possible?

In the future this is the direction I am trying to take HCDX more into. Most of the services I see in the Internet for DXers are usually: "I've cool web page, come read it". I want HCDX to have opposite approach (this list being perfect example): let's create an empty room and let people fill it and make it theirs. I haven't made HCDX as succesfull as it is today - I have only given you the place to make it possible and all of you have made it what it is today.

I am also going to expand HCDX not to be only one man operation. I am going to invite everyone to help building this service and really would like to hear more from you. If you have interesting ideas, want to offer your help, etc, please let me know - just don't email those to this list. Please make sure that if you reply this email you change the address to be risto@xxxxxxxxxxxxx - we can take these discussions one-to-one and not to increase any noise here.

73s!

Risto Kotalampi
risto@xxxxxxxxxxxxx










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