Re: [IRCA] [NRC-AM] Notes on "Inventory Insert" DX Tests

[<JohnCallarman@xxxxxxx>]

Patrick Martin writes:
"As with Ernie Cooper, QSLing is a BIG part of the hobby to me. Without it, 
I really doubt I would stay in the MW DX hobby too long."

First, before I share the comments that Patrick, one of the last of the 
traditional DX'ers still active today, has written, let me applaud Les 
Rayburn, Fred Vobbe and others who have come up with the "inventory insert" 
idea. Innovations of this nature, coupled with the concept of serving as 
volunteers to be QSL manager's for locals as Patrick, Les and Ron Gitschier 
do, show a love for the hobby that I admire.

I still enjoy leafing through the QSLs I have collected over the years, but 
they are all historic -- at least 30 years old, and most more obtained more 
than 35 years ago.

Even when stations welcomed reception reports and QSL'd them either by their 
own printed cards or letters, other factors evolved that made it harder for 
me to send reception reports. Sixty-hour work weeks, the ever-increasing 
cost of postage, the burgeoning number of stations coming on the air and the 
ever-decreasing amount of entertaining or informative programming all took 
the luster away from 1) the hobby and 2) the industry. By 1981, my love of 
broadcasting had subsided to the point where I switched from radio news to 
print as a newspaper editor.

I built up a pretty good collection of taped identifications on AM from 1970 
in Mt. Vernon, Illinois and on FM from about 1980 there ... and I've 
recorded about 120 hours worth of cassette tapes since my retirement in 
North Texas while chasing Mexican station identifications ... but the desire 
to dub the IDs off and make the 60 or so cassettes available for future 
recording has dimmed.

I sometimes wonder if I am actually in the MW DX hobby now, as little time 
as I spend turning the radio on and searching for new stations. I read all 
the items on the lists ... I collect information on Mexican radio stations 
.. I get WRTH and Passport every year ... but genealogy and writing news as 
a volunteer for the weekly Krum Star have taken up my hobby time. I've got a 
lot of ham radio equipment ready to set up in a little room we built in our 
new garage five years ago, but I have yet to install an antenna. The hams, 
at least, still QSL through the bureau ... and direct, if you send return 
postage ... but even the hams no longer consider QSLing an obligation.

Still, DX-ing remains in my blood and on the rare occasions when fragments 
of discernible audio manage to squeeze through the graveyard noise we find 
on nearly every frequency now and a station I've never ID'ed before can be 
identified, it mildly tickles my fancy. It happens mostly when I'm driving. 
When I'm at the computer working on genealogy or a news story, the sound I 
like in the background comes from WRR or from Frank's Place on XM, which I 
now get through Direct-TV.

I have been threatening to build a workable AM DX antenna system, and the 
work that Patrick, Craig, Neal and Mark are doing goes into an antenna 
notebook I've established ... but I've been threatening all that for five 
years.

I have felt it to be my responsibility to go through the hours and hours of 
master reels of tape, recorded at 1 7/8 ips, in the '60s to dub off some of 
the unique reception taped in the Panhandle of Texas, but there are too many 
things I'd rather do ... I still have the logs that can be correlated with 
the dated tapes, but considering all the other things I'd prefer to do, it's 
no longer a realistic expectation that I will, as the old cliché goes, get a 
round tuit.

A couple of years ago, there was one kind individual who offered to try to 
save the sound I'd recorded 40+ years ago, in the spirit of historical 
preservation, but at the time, I felt it was something that I should do. I 
still think I should do but reality tells me I won't, even though my family 
longevity tells me I have as much as 25 more years to go.

More power, I say, to the people who are keeping our hobby alive.

John Callarman, Krum TX

 
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