[IRCA] Lee Freshwater's legacy

[John Callarman <johncallarman@xxxxxxx>]

Lee Freshwater wrote:
"It is with deep regret that I announce the closing of the AMLOGBOOK. I no longer have the time nor the desire to spend the countless hours of updating and keeping track of AM Radio stations. I have not DX'ed in three years and do not see any Dxing in my immediate future.  
"Noise levels have gotten to the point where Dxing for me is a waste of time, not to mention the lack of anything worth listening to on this forgotten radio band."
 
To which I respond: I know the feeling. 

It has been only recently that I realized that I gave up DX'ing at least five years ago, but I had not given up keeping (or at least trying to keep) a complete list of AM stations in a format that I found useful, thinking that when I returned to the hobby, I'd be ready. A couple of years ago, I bought a Perseus and a computer with enough memory to handle it ... but I never hooked them up. I thought it'd be nice to add an phase an ALA loop and and a 300-foot mini-bog and concentrate of phasing QRM to concentrate on Mexican stations.
 
But between genealogy, writing for the weekly Krum News, keeping up with friends on Facebook, following local high school sports, etc., when would I find the time to check every frequency at the top of the hour to cull out station breaks for my taped collection thereof?

I've joked that I invented DX'ing back in 1947, when I was a seventh-grader. I'd never heard of the hobby, but I did have a White's Radio Log and I and a couple of buddies in Corvallis, Oregon, started listing the stations we could hear. We haunted the local commercial radio station, KRUL, and I learned about Broadcasting Magazine, Radio Daily, and their yearbooks, which gave much more detail than White's, or Stevenson's. For a couple of weekends, I commandeered a desk at KRUL and typed the complete list of AM stations for my own use.

I visited KOAC, the Oregon State non-commercial station and got to know Grant Feikert, the long-time chief engineer, W7DE, who tried to encourage me to become a ham. I learned about QSL'ing from Grant, but never in my wildest dreams thought broadcast stations would QSL reception reports.

In 1950, when I was 15, I bought my first subscription to Broadcasting Magazine. It cost $7.00, and included the Yearbook! But in 1950, I discovered Ken Boord's Radio Television News shortwave DX column and realized that broadcast stations on the shortwave bands did encourage listener reports and rewarded DX'ers with QSLs. I jumped into SWL'g with a bang, and actually was among the first to hear a couple of stations, 4VEH and TGNA, becoming a regular monitor for the latter. I did hear a couple of unusual AM stations in 1950, WHHM-1340, Memphis, and WLDS-1180, Jacksonville IL, and, despite my skepticism about AM stations QSL'g, I sent reports to those two and was surprised when I received actual QSL-cards from each.

But I was hooked on SWBC, more-or-less abandoning BCB. I kept up my subscription to Broadcasting, I kept up my fandom for KRUL, and when I started scorekeeping and story-writing for the equivalent of Little League in 1951, by the time I got to high school, I was doing half-time and post-game stats for KRUL's high school play-by-play broadcasts ... purely as a hobby.

It wasn't until 1955 that I joined a radio club, URDXC, then NNRC, but still concentrated on SWBC. In 1955, I took my first full-time radio job, at KCOV-1240, Corvallis, and that winter, it became my duty to verify a taped reception report of our sign-off from Roy Millar in Issaquah, Washington. Roy introduced me to NRC, I did a DX program that drew valid reception reports from as far east as Oklahoma City and as far west as Dunedin, N.Z., plus a couple of incorrect tentatives from DX'ers farther east whom I later learned were of dubious reputation ...

Thus began my connection with NRC, and, later, IRCA, as well as my broadcasting career, the growing knowledge of the hobby, its history, its mystique ... and I  have been eyeball-to-eyeball with many of the grandest names in the DX hobby in following 57 years.

I'll be in Minneapolis next month, renewing acquaintances and meeting new friends ... but, Lee, I have to admit -- I'm not a DX'er anymore.

John Callarman, KA9SPA, Family Genealogist, Retired Newspaper Editor, DX-oyente, Krum TX (AKA Qal R. Mann, Krumudgeon)


 		 	   		  
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