Re: [IRCA] 30 years of skywave DXing

["Craig Healy" <bubba@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nice stories about how some folks began DXing!  Thanks!

I did a fair bit of it in the early 60's.  Got a number of QSLs.  But my 
first DX was around 1955.  As a kid I used to tune my grandmother's 5-tube 
radio to find programs like Fibber McGee & Molly or Amos & Andy.  One night 
I heard a station say "And it's 7pm.."  Our clock said 8pm.  I thought he 
made a mistake but he continued and said "...in Chicago".  Chicago??  Well, 
I knew where the grocery store was, and maybe the next town, but Chicago?  I 
asked later and they said it was many miles away.  At that point radio 
seemed like magic and I continued to tune around with a different attitude.

In the later 50's I used a radio in my room, another 5-tube GE type.  Didn't 
realize that the loop antenna on the back was directional.  The local 1110 
daytimer had Top-40 music I liked, but WBT in North Carolina would come in a 
while before sunset and block it.  Didn't realize all I had to do was turn 
the radio a bit and stop nulling the local station...

And somewhat later I pulled a Stewart Warner radio out of a 1953 Studebaker 
and figured out how to run it off a 6.3v filament transformer.  Got all 
sorts of things on that.  Running antenna wires in the room used to drive my 
mother mildly insane.  I also used some thin stainless steel wire for a long 
wire outside antenna that didn't work at all.  If I only had realized 
stainless steel was quite lossy.

Imagine if Doc Brown in "Back To The Future" had brought me a Drake R8B and 
loop antenna in 1955.  Or brought ME back to 1955.  Imagine the DX with 
today's experience!

Craig Healy
Providence, RI

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