It's midnight in February. You are inland and indoors -- let's say central Indiana or Colorado. A thermos of chocolate or coffee is primed, or maybe a pitcher of martinis is within easy reach. Every light bulb in the house has been turned off, and all other devices (those non-essential to DX, of course) have been muted.
Your taping device is whining at the starting line; waiting for the clutch to be released.
Your ears have been swabbed with Q-tips. A map of the USA is displayed prominently. A 64-liter bag of Doritos, or a vat of Cheese-Its, Milk Duds and/or Junior Mints is off to the side. You have swallowed a benzedrine pill, and through the process of cracking your knuckles you are satisfied with your tuning dexterity. At that moment you are fit, tense and alert, essentially a hockey goalie wearing earphones who waits for the first puck to be dropped. You have the entire night free to hunt in the darkness for game and not have to leave your chair. In your fist is a #3 pencil, stout, with its point suitably nubbed gently to ensure corrections from a fresh eraser at its other end. A 1/2-inch stack of blank paper for blow-by-blow documentation rests under your wrist.
No DX tests have been scheduled. A thorough scrutiny of the weather for the entire hemisphere shows no thundershower activity. The Auroral index is 1. You have until sunrise, and maybe a little beyond that, to fatten up your collection of ID's.
With a click, the dial (and the six tubes of your supercharged 1958 Emerson table radio) glows. Perhaps the illumination casts an eerie projection of light on a wall -- a backwards dial.
What's next ? Where do you, a confident, slop-scarred veteran sentry, head first?
Do you have a pilot station or two to gauge conditions in a random direction?
Do you try the whole dial, starting at 520 or so? Do you start at 1710 and work the other way?
In other words, do you start at generally the same place each time?
How often would you check a frequency that, like a prime ice-fishing hole, has treated you well?
Do you scan for music, which, almost automatically, would indicate a station not from this country?
Do you immediately scan to see if anything loud and local isn't on the air?
Nowadays, with simulcasts and slogans all over the map, actual station ID times are precious and far between. To what class of frequency would you gravitate -- let's say instinctually -- at :58 ?
Any hints or characteristics or habits would be useful.
* * * * * * *
I'm just looking for some tips here from you guys and gals, on this great forum, many of whom appear ten times as enthused as I am. So how do you start out, and -- more importantly -- what keeps you going?
See, I'm not as assiduous or zoned as I used to be at this. Moreover, back when DXing was like a peer-pressure substance abuse to our little group, we were fortunate enough to have music playing on the AM dial. We could take a break, and be more in condition to continue the pursuit of pure DX longer. The music is no longer there. Fatigue can be the only result.
In 2013, with us being pretty free of even REGIONAL stations at night, I'll usually stay between, say, 1400 and 1500 ...... or 1200 - 1300 ; wait for something loud where there usually isn't something loud, and hope I don't find one a half an hour away from the TOH ID.
In other words, my approach is very casual. I may need just a small bag of Bugles or a half a sleeve of Oreos for fuel now.
How do you pros approach an all-night DX session on AM nowadays? ARE there such things any more?
Your taping device is whining at the starting line; waiting for the clutch to be released.
Your ears have been swabbed with Q-tips. A map of the USA is displayed prominently. A 64-liter bag of Doritos, or a vat of Cheese-Its, Milk Duds and/or Junior Mints is off to the side. You have swallowed a benzedrine pill, and through the process of cracking your knuckles you are satisfied with your tuning dexterity. At that moment you are fit, tense and alert, essentially a hockey goalie wearing earphones who waits for the first puck to be dropped. You have the entire night free to hunt in the darkness for game and not have to leave your chair. In your fist is a #3 pencil, stout, with its point suitably nubbed gently to ensure corrections from a fresh eraser at its other end. A 1/2-inch stack of blank paper for blow-by-blow documentation rests under your wrist.
No DX tests have been scheduled. A thorough scrutiny of the weather for the entire hemisphere shows no thundershower activity. The Auroral index is 1. You have until sunrise, and maybe a little beyond that, to fatten up your collection of ID's.
With a click, the dial (and the six tubes of your supercharged 1958 Emerson table radio) glows. Perhaps the illumination casts an eerie projection of light on a wall -- a backwards dial.
What's next ? Where do you, a confident, slop-scarred veteran sentry, head first?
Do you have a pilot station or two to gauge conditions in a random direction?
Do you try the whole dial, starting at 520 or so? Do you start at 1710 and work the other way?
In other words, do you start at generally the same place each time?
How often would you check a frequency that, like a prime ice-fishing hole, has treated you well?
Do you scan for music, which, almost automatically, would indicate a station not from this country?
Do you immediately scan to see if anything loud and local isn't on the air?
Nowadays, with simulcasts and slogans all over the map, actual station ID times are precious and far between. To what class of frequency would you gravitate -- let's say instinctually -- at :58 ?
Any hints or characteristics or habits would be useful.
* * * * * * *
I'm just looking for some tips here from you guys and gals, on this great forum, many of whom appear ten times as enthused as I am. So how do you start out, and -- more importantly -- what keeps you going?
See, I'm not as assiduous or zoned as I used to be at this. Moreover, back when DXing was like a peer-pressure substance abuse to our little group, we were fortunate enough to have music playing on the AM dial. We could take a break, and be more in condition to continue the pursuit of pure DX longer. The music is no longer there. Fatigue can be the only result.
In 2013, with us being pretty free of even REGIONAL stations at night, I'll usually stay between, say, 1400 and 1500 ...... or 1200 - 1300 ; wait for something loud where there usually isn't something loud, and hope I don't find one a half an hour away from the TOH ID.
In other words, my approach is very casual. I may need just a small bag of Bugles or a half a sleeve of Oreos for fuel now.
How do you pros approach an all-night DX session on AM nowadays? ARE there such things any more?
