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Welcome to America's newest DX-er

cyberdad

cyberdad

My twelve year old Grandson, Evan. He's long been interested in all things scientific, so I thought he might be interested in DXing. I gave him a brief inotr a few weeks back when he was with us on our trip to the beach. He seemed interested and asked me numerous questions, so when he was at the house last weekend, I gave him my old Sangean ATS 505. Then on Monday, he went with his dad (my son) on a business trip to Seattle. The first catch he reported to me from there in a text yesterday was KSRO, 1350 from Santa Rosa, CA.

So much for starting off with the 50kw blowtorches. The kid's off and running!
 
That is so cool!

Especially in this age where radio listening has been replaced by sources via the internet for most young people.
 
gar hi said:
That is so cool!

Especially in this age where radio listening has been replaced by sources via the internet for most young people.
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That's one of the things I was explaining to him. Especially when he expressed an interest in exploring shortwave.

I'm trying not to go into information overload with him. I'll go in "small doses" as long as he maintains his interest.
 
Awesome! Does he have plans to get his ham ticket too? This past Field Day I heard a 14-year-old operating Field Day (KC1KUG), sounded really good. Apparently he's been in contests and is involved with David K1TTT...if you've listened to any HF contest you've heard "Kilo 1 Tango Tango Tango" calling in the past.
 
cyberdad said:
My twelve year old Grandson, Evan. He's long been interested in all things scientific, so I thought he might be interested in DXing. I gave him a brief inotr a few weeks back when he was with us on our trip to the beach. He seemed interested and asked me numerous questions, so when he was at the house last weekend, I gave him my old Sangean ATS 505. Then on Monday, he went with his dad (my son) on a business trip to Seattle. The first catch he reported to me from there in a text yesterday was KSRO, 1350 from Santa Rosa, CA.

So much for starting off with the 50kw blowtorches. The kid's off and running!
Click to expand...
That is so great--I love it. Lots of good DX wishes to him!
 
crainbebo said:
Awesome! Does he have plans to get his ham ticket too? This past Field Day I heard a 14-year-old operating Field Day (KC1KUG), sounded really good. Apparently he's been in contests and is involved with David K1TTT...if you've listened to any HF contest you've heard "Kilo 1 Tango Tango Tango" calling in the past.
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The thought of Evan perhaps evemtually getting his ham ticket has crossed my mind. I'm the one who got my wife's younger brother interested in radio as a teenager, and he's had his ham ticket for decades (WB9FBO....well over 100 countries worked). He's gone even farther than that. He owns a rep firm that provides two way radio and similar equipment to police, fire, first responders and other organizations throughout Illinois and Wisconsin.
 
radioman148 said:
That is so great--I love it. Lots of good DX wishes to him!
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Thx! BTW, if you look at my current avatar, that's Evan, front row far right. That's his younger sister, Lauren, standing next to him. (The three other kids in the front row are my triplet grandkids....7 years old).
 
Watch out! You might have a feast of ham operators and radio enthusiasts coming. We need young people to continue what previous generations have done. Sure, Minecraft is fun, and there is online communication, but how fun would it be for Evan to call CQ on 20 meters and hear someone from England, or Brazil, or even Japan? And actually get to communicate with that person, headset-to-headset, without using a cell phone. Years ago I was scanning 20 meters on a summer afternoon and stumbled across the voice of a young boy. Found out he was a 12-year-old from Georgia, just making contacts as if he was much older than 12. I was impressed.

Also, get him involved in FM DX, at least in some way. Teach him about tropospheric reception and sporadic-E, as well as meteor scatter (and how when he sees meteor showers at night, stations will pop in for a few seconds as a meteor passes). Does he live in Illinois or somewhere else? You (or his dad) might want to take a DXpedition trip with him to an area with few radio stations for the Perseids in August...like way up in the WI Northwoods or the Michigan U.P. A place with not a lot of light interference to see them, but also where HD hash and LPFMs don't take over half of the FM band.
 
crainbebo said:
Watch out! You might have a feast of ham operators and radio enthusiasts coming. We need young people to continue what previous generations have done. Sure, Minecraft is fun, and there is online communication, but how fun would it be for Evan to call CQ on 20 meters and hear someone from England, or Brazil, or even Japan? And actually get to communicate with that person, headset-to-headset, without using a cell phone. Years ago I was scanning 20 meters on a summer afternoon and stumbled across the voice of a young boy. Found out he was a 12-year-old from Georgia, just making contacts as if he was much older than 12. I was impressed.

Also, get him involved in FM DX, at least in some way. Teach him about tropospheric reception and sporadic-E, as well as meteor scatter (and how when he sees meteor showers at night, stations will pop in for a few seconds as a meteor passes). Does he live in Illinois or somewhere else? You (or his dad) might want to take a DXpedition trip with him to an area with few radio stations for the Perseids in August...like way up in the WI Northwoods or the Michigan U.P. A place with not a lot of light interference to see them, but also where HD hash and LPFMs don't take over half of the FM band.
Click to expand...
crainbebo said:
Watch out! You might have a feast of ham operators and radio enthusiasts coming. We need young people to continue what previous generations have done. Sure, Minecraft is fun, and there is online communication, but how fun would it be for Evan to call CQ on 20 meters and hear someone from England, or Brazil, or even Japan? And actually get to communicate with that person, headset-to-headset, without using a cell phone. Years ago I was scanning 20 meters on a summer afternoon and stumbled across the voice of a young boy. Found out he was a 12-year-old from Georgia, just making contacts as if he was much older than 12. I was impressed.

Also, get him involved in FM DX, at least in some way. Teach him about tropospheric reception and sporadic-E, as well as meteor scatter (and how when he sees meteor showers at night, stations will pop in for a few seconds as a meteor passes). Does he live in Illinois or somewhere else? You (or his dad) might want to take a DXpedition trip with him to an area with few radio stations for the Perseids in August...like way up in the WI Northwoods or the Michigan U.P. A place with not a lot of light interference to see them, but also where HD hash and LPFMs don't take over half of the FM band.
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Thanks, crainbebo....Evan lives about 15 miles east-northeast of me, and his uncle (my brother in-law, the ham) is about five miles from whrere Evan is. The two of them already have a good relationship, so I'm sure my brother in-law won't be shy about nurturning any interest Evan shows in ham radio.

As for FM DX, he's already getting into it. On the beach, I explained to Evan about tropo and E-skip. (New Orleans FM is a tropo semi-regular from a distance of about 150 miles.) Fast forward to his flight home Wednesday, and he was trying his hand at FM DX on the plane. He told me he heard KJJY from Des Moines. But I'm unclear whether this was over Iowa or hundreds of miles distant. I told him that FM reception at 35,000 feet up when east of the Mississipi can be a jumble of signals. But in the west, the "line of sight" signal can go on for hundreds of miles.

Stay tuned!
 
Very cool. I know aircraft DX is crazy with the line-of-sight, 300 or 400 mi maximum over the west coast...haven't tried it for myself yet and apparently only Delta Airlines allows that...
 
cyberdad said:
The thought of Evan perhaps evemtually getting his ham ticket has crossed my mind. I'm the one who got my wife's younger brother interested in radio as a teenager, and he's had his ham ticket for decades (WB9FBO....well over 100 countries worked). He's gone even farther than that. He owns a rep firm that provides two way radio and similar equipment to police, fire, first responders and other organizations throughout Illinois and Wisconsin.
Click to expand...
I got my ham ticket many many years ago after getting my first SW radio. I also worked well over 100 countries when I was active back in the day. Haven't used it in many years, but have never given up DXing. My grandson never showed any interest in radio and neither has my grand-daughter. If they had I would've welcomed them into the hobby. Lucky you and good luck to Evan!
 
crainbebo said:
Very cool. I know aircraft DX is crazy with the line-of-sight, 300 or 400 mi maximum over the west coast...haven't tried it for myself yet and apparently only Delta Airlines allows that...
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I live in a town where a number of pilots make their home. I'm friends with a number of them, and to a man, rules or no rules, none of them see a problem with it. Most of them are with American or United, but one is with with Delta. Basically what these guys have told me is that any RFI given off by a hand-help portable radio should not have any significant effect on modern jet aircraft electronics. Whenever I've tried inflight FM DX it's mostly been with a walkman. On trans-atlantic flights I'd turn the radio on. Tune it to whatever I could reach below 88mhz and use the resultant white noise to help me sleep by blocking out whatever was going on in the cabin. On overnight flights, it worked like a charm.
 
radioman148 said:
I remember a time years ago when if crew members saw you using a radio on a plane in flight they'd tell you to turn it off immediately.
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Yeah, I've had that happen to me a couple of times. But back during the years when I was on planes frequently, I'd usually be more inclined to listen to cassettes, then later CD's, and later still, mp3s or Spotify playlists offline.

Of course, waaay back in the day, you could always opt for John Doremus' inflight entertainment. You can still catch old Doremus tapes online. 97five.com. (Recreation of KNXR-FM, Rochester, MN, which was Doremus' source for in flight music content.,
 
I heard KNXR-FM Rochester a few years back on Eskip, but they were 'Minnesota 97.5' classic hits by then. I missed out on the B/EZ format.

Here's another thing you can get your grandson hooked on - challenge him to see how far he can pick up a Chicago AM station when they go on vacations or business trips. If they go back to the west coast this winter, WBBM is possible when Reno is nulled out and the conditions are good.
The same goes with any of the Chicago (or rimshot) FMs. How far along I-80 or I-55 can he get WLS-FM or WIIL on 95.1? I'm not sure what music he likes (I would assume top 40 like most middle-school students), but perhaps try it on his favorite local FM.
 
crainbebo said:
Here's another thing you can get your grandson hooked on - challenge him to see how far he can pick up a Chicago AM station when they go on vacations or business trips. If they go back to the west coast this winter, WBBM is possible when Reno is nulled out and the conditions are good.
The same goes with any of the Chicago (or rimshot) FMs. How far along I-80 or I-55 can he get WLS-FM or WIIL on 95.1? I'm not sure what music he likes (I would assume top 40 like most middle-school students), but perhaps try it on his favorite local FM.
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A few years after I started DXing we were on a family trip to California. I picked up all 4 Chicago blowtorches on that trip. Of course back then they were all clear channels.
 
crainbebo said:
I heard KNXR-FM Rochester a few years back on Eskip, but they were 'Minnesota 97.5' classic hits by then. I missed out on the B/EZ format
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The Rochester 97.5 has a massive signal. Easily listenable on a good car radio throughout much....if not most....of the Twin Cities metro. The online recreation of the original KNXR is quite faithful to what it sounded like. A little more uptempo version of the old Schulke format with more vocals. John Doremus' syndicated program featured somewhat more vocals, but still fit in quite well. As well it should have....After all, Doremus was using the KNXR library!
 
cyberdad said:
My twelve year old Grandson, Evan. He's long been interested in all things scientific, so I thought he might be interested in DXing. I gave him a brief inotr a few weeks back when he was with us on our trip to the beach. He seemed interested and asked me numerous questions, so when he was at the house last weekend, I gave him my old Sangean ATS 505. Then on Monday, he went with his dad (my son) on a business trip to Seattle. The first catch he reported to me from there in a text yesterday was KSRO, 1350 from Santa Rosa, CA.

So much for starting off with the 50kw blowtorches. The kid's off and running!
Click to expand...
KSRO is a good catch from the Seattle area because local 1360 is a master-blaster.

But then, the ATS505 has very good selectivity, actually. My Radio Shack 200629 (their branded ATS505 -- I think it has a different audio chip and microprocessor, but the rest of it looks the same) is an amazingly good MW DXer. The selectivity is deceptively great. I.e., you wouldn't think it's was that good until you tune around and DX.

Glad to hear your grandson Evan is getting the bug.
 
boombox4 said:
KSRO is a good catch from the Seattle area because local 1360 is a master-blaster.

But then, the ATS505 has very good selectivity, actually. My Radio Shack 200629 (their branded ATS505 -- I think it has a different audio chip and microprocessor, but the rest of it looks the same) is an amazingly good MW DXer. The selectivity is deceptively great. I.e., you wouldn't think it's was that good until you tune around and DX.

Glad to hear your grandson Evan is getting the bug.
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Thanks, boombox. I had some pretty good results with the ATS505. On all bands. And yes, the selectivity was/is quite good. It performed well for me in digging signals out of adjacent channel slop.
 
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