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DXing in the 1950s and today

David,

I only wish that I knew about the radio clubs back then. For some reason in my mind I figured that to hear a station on the West Coast that station had to be 50KW. I knew that I could hear many regionals that were 5KW from as far away as New Orleans for example. I also knew about the midnight signoffs and have a tape of many stations signing off from 1963.
What I didn't know is if I had had a better antenna and more info that you had I could've had a shot at Hawaii back then. I never knew that was possible in those days. I thought I was doing well just getting reception from coast to coast.

BTW: I visited alot of radio stations too. My mother drove me to downtown Chicago to visit the WLS studios in the early 60s. She finally let me take the train after awhile. I had a cousin who knew someone at WNMP a 1590 daytimer in Evanston. That was the first station I visited and it was in 1960. In 1963 when WEEF in Highland Park, Il went on the air I used to ride my bike to the train and go up there 2-3 times a week in the summer. The announcer used to let me rip news off the teletype and start some turntables. Very cool for me at the time.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Interesting aside. The original quote was something like "Television...is a vast wasteland", as stated by former FCC Chairman Newton Minow.
Click to expand...

I knew someone with historical knowledge would catch that liberal modification of the little fish's comments about broadcasting.

I was told by a broadcaster from that era that he did not pay as much attention to radio, but once dismissed that medium based on what was obviously a criticism of Top 40 and was sort of "... and all they do is play horrible records over and over all day".

"Elite, party of one... your table is ready."
 
radioman148 said:
David,

I only wish that I knew about the radio clubs back then. For some reason in my mind I figured that to hear a station on the West Coast that station had to be 50KW. I knew that I could hear many regionals that were 5KW from as far away as New Orleans for example. I also knew about the midnight signoffs and have a tape of many stations signing off from 1963.
What I didn't know is if I had had a better antenna and more info that you had I could've had a shot at Hawaii back then. I never knew that was possible in those days. I thought I was doing well just getting reception from coast to coast.
Click to expand...

I learned of radio clubs by stumbling across a DX test early in my dedication to the hobby. I reported the station, and asked about the club. They told me, and I joined. It was a club that was very small, based in Nova Scotia. But I soon heard of the NRC and the NNRC and joined, too. Later, I was a founding director of the IRCA and also was a member of clubs from England and New Zealand.

I have to say that hearing thousands of stations, good and bad, taught me a lot about radio programming even though I was just a teenager. I was pretty much a radio junkie from the beginning, and have been known to consult interesting stations for free just to have the experience.
 
DavidEduardo said:
I learned of radio clubs by stumbling across a DX test early in my dedication to the hobby. I reported the station, and asked about the club. They told me, and I joined. It was a club that was very small, based in Nova Scotia. But I soon heard of the NRC and the NNRC and joined, too. Later, I was a founding director of the IRCA and also was a member of clubs from England and New Zealand.

I have to say that hearing thousands of stations, good and bad, taught me a lot about radio programming even though I was just a teenager. I was pretty much a radio junkie from the beginning, and have been known to consult interesting stations for free just to have the experience.
Click to expand...

Good for you in following what you loved and making a career of it.
 
I was only 4 at the end of the 50s so I have no memories of radio, let alone DXing back then. My first radio memories were in the 60s. I barely remember that there were radio stations other than WOWO when I lived in the Northern Indiana lakes area, between Ft Wayne and South Bend. I remember my Grandma tuning around to find WSBT (we watched WSBT-TV) on 960 during the Palm Sunday tornadoes, and our local, WRSW-1480. I also think I remember her or me maybe tuning across WCCO, and all I remember is an announcer saying "Minneapolis-St. Paul". WOWO, even with it being the full service leader and the 50,000 watt voice of the big business of farming", played the top 40, even songs like "Somebody to Love"-Jefferson Airplane, and "Light My Fire"-Doors. Except for a mellow period in 1968, even through the 70s, WOWO rocked harder than the real top 40s, WLYV and later WMEE.

1967 came and we moved to a small town in West Central Ohio, in the traingle between Fort Wayne, Dayton and Lima. At the pool I discovered "Fun Radio 8 CKLW" which was blasting out of the speakers at the park and pool. Soon it would become The Big 8 CKLW. I discovered the station dissapeared at sunset and later it was because of the directional pattern, not a power reduction. Soon I would discover WABC, WLS, WCFL and many other stations. I discovered FM relatively early, when the principal of my junior high did a weekend shift there. I half expected to hear "That was Tommy James and the Shondells, and the following students will report to detention hall". This stand-alone station was built in 1960, before the AM/FM combo across town.

Next step in the process was accidentally discovering both CB and shortwave through a Western Auto (The Man from Western S.P.Y.) walkie-talkie set. It transmitted on CB Channel 9 but received everything from 25-30 MHz all at once. There was still shortwave broadcast (mostly Voice of America it seemed)..I think I was getting the Greeneville NC site. Also, 25 MHz WWV. When I hear "Rainy Night in Georgia: I still think of hearing on VOA on my Walkie-Talkie taking a nighttime walk. Go figure. Somehow on that Walkie Talkie setup I managed to make contact with a CBer who lived doors down. This was before the "Convoy" craze. He invited me in to see his setup, which consisted of I think a Lafayette base station. He worked locally under his callsign, and skip with a "handle". He had a nice directional beam. Around that same time, I discovered Sporadic E Skip on the lower TV channels, and most particularly, Cuba on 3 and 6. In addition, loggings from Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and some other places.

Shortwave was next on my agenda, through a portable and later, a Realistic DX150A. I joined NASWA and SPEEDX (remember that club?) and formed a DX club of my own. I was a big fan of Radio Canada International, some HCJB programs (DX Party Line and my first taste of "Jesus Rock", Larry Norman, et al on "A New Song"). I also liked Radio Nederland and the BBC, which helped me get a glimpse of the European charts (particularly the BBC's "Records Round the World".). The real DX bug had me looking for 60 meter band tropical DX. WInter afternoons Africa would fade in around 4:30pm, then the Latin Americans. The Africans would sign back on around 1am Eastern. I took to liking Ecos del Torbes and "Lo Que Esta Noche Recurda". I took Spanish in high school but learned to speak it through shortwave. I also learned a lot of geography. It was late in the 70s when I discovered E Skip happened on FM too.

I turned my attention to medium wave DXing just before my time in Sarasota, FL at First Class License Wonder School. I bought a Sony ICF-5900W which had MW/FM and shortwave, Turned out to be a great performer on AM and FM. I joined the NRC after getting back home. I was DXing FM before that.

Fast forward: Sunset DX was and is my favorite. All things old have been repurposed, and I've come to love the online SDRs (always disclosing if I hear something on one). I came to like DXing from different locations, and now I can use better setups than I have at home, and virtually DX from places I'll never get to.
 
I began with AM DXing in Genesee County, MI. My first idea of "DX" was WOAP from Owosso, 25 miles away, around 1961. By a year later, I discovered WGN on the Delco Car Radio, Day and Night. We got a Magnavox Stereo Theater in late 1962. My cousin saw it on a trip from the Chicago area, and said we could probably hear WLS on it. We tried, but it was pretty weak, and local WFDF 910 had all kinds of splatter over it. I remember discovering WBZ and WCFL about 1965. WCFL was today's equivalent of Hot Adult Contemporary then but soon evolved into Top 40. But WCFL BOOMED IN at Night, much stronger than WLS. And still does as WMVP. Didn't know about their DA and shorter electrical tower heights until years later, that favored their signal over WLS. WLAC, WCKY, and WOWO also boomed in. It kind of built up from there.

My father and mother both worked in radio briefly, my father as a musical performer, my mother as a secretary. Recently, in David's QSL Card and Letter Archives, I found a QSL letter she typed, signed by the CE, and with her four letter (including her maiden name initial) initials in lower case as the typist. I was absolutely stunned when I saw it and realized she had typed it! It was to the guy in PA, Kermit Geary, who heard the 250 watt Daytimer during an overnight test! My father was also a DXer, like many young people in the 1920s and 1930s. And they got letters from as far as Montana when his musical ensemble performed on WREO Lansing, which was 500 watts, but only lasted a few years. WREO was owned by Ransom E. Olds, the founder of Oldsmobile. He talked about hearing WJJD Mooseheart, WPG Atlantic City, WJZ New York City, WOR Newark, NJ, WIND Gary, and many others, and even KFI late at Night! When I bought an RF-2200, I shared listening to KFI with him many Nights, until the Clear Channels were broken up after about 1983.

That's the early Days of my DXing, as well as how I got interested. I'll have more chapters later.
 
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@gr8oldies, WOWO was a pretty good station in the 60s. In the Chicago area we could hear it during the day and it was one of my go to stations when WLS and WCFL were playing a song I didn't like.

@SC, When I first started getting interested in radio my dad told me about WLW being the most powerful station in the nation at one time.
I thought he was just telling me that because it was probably the first actual DX I heard. It wasn't until later on that I realized he was not making it up.
 
My father did talk about WLW being the most powerful AM station in the country. CFRB Toronto used to be on 690 as a Class I-A. They complained about WLW interference from the 500 kW on 700, and WLW had to build a DA to put a null toward CFRB equivalent to 50 kW. So generally to the North, WLW wasn't close to the full 500 kW inverse field. Canada then nationalized their Class I-A and I-B allotments, took 690 to Montreal, and left CFRB interfered with by a 50 kW cochannel station in New York City on 1010, WINS, and directional to top it off. Maybe the Canadian goverment didn't like private sector broadcasting either?
 
I started out when a wee kid, using an old RCA console that sat next to my bed, with maybe seven feet of wire attached to it. It pulled in Oregon quite well, and once I heard KFRC, which was a surprise. Obviously, one needed a longer piece of wire than 7 feet but I didn't know, and neither did my parents.

Later on I got a different console, a Silvertone, from a thrift store, and it pulled in AM on a frame-loop antenna that was built inside the cabinet. I first heard WCCO, WWL, WLS, and a few other distant catches on that one.

As time progressed I got more radios, including a Realistic DX-160, FRG-7, TRF... I also had some transistor portables that adequately pulled in the usual Cold War stations. Radio Moscow day-round, as well as Russian outlets like Mayak which served the sailors in the Pacific, with the female announcers giving the national, Moscow time.

The main difference between SW then and now, as we all know, is night and day. Entire bands that used to be packed (21 meters, 25 meters, 19 meters, 31 meters) with signals are empty. Even the ham bands are sparse when it comes to transmissions compared to years ago. Whatever is on the air is not generally audible because of the near nuclear winter conditions we have had for the past several years. If you do not have a long outdoor antenna or some sophisticated outdoor loop, good luck. Whatever stations are broadcasting on the Eurasian continent are lost in the static.

MW is a mixed bag. More stations on the air than there was in the 70's and 80's, and X-band, too. Conditions diving since mid decade haven't helped, but I still listen every night, mainly to regionals for programming and something different to hear. There are a lot of satellite and network shows, true, but there are classic hits stations audible, a few MW'ers with translators that play AC and pop, and a rocker here and there. The South Asian and Spanish language stations can be interesting to listen to.

I think MW is where SW was at the turn of the century. I dread thinking about how it will be 20 years from now.
 
Ken Gustafson said:
Stations did DX tests? They were looking for reception reports?
Click to expand...

The medium wave DX clubs had committees that wrote to stations and asked them to test, mostly on Monday morning after 3 AM EST. This allowed daytimers and stations normally not on until late in the night to be heard by DXers.

Since back then most stations had a dedicated engineer, and Monday morning was when they did maintenance anyway, there would be lots of test every Monday. Dozens at times.

Of course they got reports. And most were happy to respond, and it was not uncommon for a stations on a relatively clear frequency to get as many as several hundred reports. Even a graveyarder might get 60 to 70 back then, and be heard for at least a 1000 mile radius. Usually the DX programs played marches and test tones. Marches penetrated well, and a march would not be played on a regular station, so it helped DXers to find the signal. Some even did code IDs.
 
@ Ken G's > ...'Do stations still QSL? ... <

Somewhat in recent times I tuned in here, in NE PA, to try and hear the WWON 1240 DX TEST.
Some here might know the date of that. It was widely publicized.

And gosh-darn : There they were, in the 1240 quicksand, with their Morse Code ID's pretty clear and atop at times. I even remembered most of those letters from the days when a few of us took a refresher course in Morse. (That double ' . - - ' at the start helped, hi.) The reception was off a barefoot GE SR 2. I sent them a cassette, and a pic of the radio with the wife beaming at the radio as though it were some floral bouquet. Return postage, too.

I got no reply at all. No eMail, no card, not even the package returned 'insufficient postage'. Rhode Island is a tough state for many AM DXers to hear and I figured the staff at WWON would be celebrating their success at having been heard in NE Pennsylvania. I guess not.

* * * * * * *

A more recent try at a 'verie' was from WARR 1520 from North Carolina, eight years ago at sunset. There was no WKBW at all. WARR too got a cassette, and a printed log of things like sponsors. And return postage.

No go. No verie. Harrumph. I can understand where the staff at WARR might possibly have had some qualms about acknowledging that some idiot honky from three states away heard them in the clear ; perhaps this daytimer was operating at full power rather than their critical hours wattage?

But WWON and its nearly universal-notification TEST is another story. Maybe WWON had a stamp collector at the time.
 
DavidEduardo said:
The medium wave DX clubs had committees that wrote to stations and asked them to test, mostly on Monday morning after 3 AM EST. This allowed daytimers and stations normally not on until late in the night to be heard by DXers.

Since back then most stations had a dedicated engineer, and Monday morning was when they did maintenance anyway, there would be lots of test every Monday. Dozens at times.

Of course they got reports. And most were happy to respond, and it was not uncommon for a stations on a relatively clear frequency to get as many as several hundred reports. Even a graveyarder might get 60 to 70 back then, and be heard for at least a 1000 mile radius. Usually the DX programs played marches and test tones. Marches penetrated well, and a march would not be played on a regular station, so it helped DXers to find the signal. Some even did code IDs.
Click to expand...

The Scandinavian DXers use Beverage Antennas at quite a few azimuths toward the US and Canada. They have logged the majority of the Class IVs/Class Cs over the years, and just about every Class II and III station greater than 1 kW. They don't seem to try very hard for stations less than 1 kW, even if the Inverse Field toward Scandinavia exceeds the DA equivalent of 1 kW. That is over 4000 miles away.
 
DavidEduardo said:
I learned of radio clubs by stumbling across a DX test early in my dedication to the hobby. I reported the station, and asked about the club. They told me, and I joined. It was a club that was very small, based in Nova Scotia. But I soon heard of the NRC and the NNRC and joined, too. Later, I was a founding director of the IRCA and also was a member of clubs from England and New Zealand.
Click to expand...

I discovered MW DXing in 1970, when I was 13 and living in Tulsa. I think my interest started when I discovered I could listen to the St Louis Cardinals games on KMOX. I later sent a QSL request to KFAB and received a QSL and a letter telling me about IRCA. In those days, there were always a few DX tests on Monday mornings in the winter months, a great way to hear things you'd never hear otherwise. At one point I called a station during a test and they put me on the air. If memory serves, it was WAZY 1410 in Lafayette IN (now WSHY). Those were the days...
 
wildthangjim said:
I discovered MW DXing in 1970, when I was 13 and living in Tulsa. I think my interest started when I discovered I could listen to the St Louis Cardinals games on KMOX.
Click to expand...

Growing up in the Chicago area as a White Sox fan I knew where to listen to the games of the teams they were competing with in the standings. I could get almost all the other AL cities except Boston and the West Coast. My friends who were baseball fans, but didn't care about DXing knew most of them too.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
The Scandinavian DXers use Beverage Antennas at quite a few azimuths toward the US and Canada. They have logged the majority of the Class IVs/Class Cs over the years, and just about every Class II and III station greater than 1 kW. They don't seem to try very hard for stations less than 1 kW, even if the Inverse Field toward Scandinavia exceeds the DA equivalent of 1 kW. That is over 4000 miles away.
Click to expand...

This is why I love listening to those remote receivers in Europe in the winter. Great DX can be heard and some on here like Cyberdad really know how to dig out those weaker North American signals.
 
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