What year did you start MW & FM DX'ing?

[Icangelp]

I am curious when DX and Reception posters began their interest in MW & FM DX'ing, shortwave also.

I started out MW DX'ing in about 1958/9 when I bought a Zenith Royal 1000 (D?) from my paper route cash flow. At one point in the late 60's, I had somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 MW verifications. Unfortunately, my aunt threw away my log book when she was cleaning our house after my mom died. I stopped shortly after that.

My second re-entry into DX'ing began a couple of years ago, and the previous was from 1978-1982.

I do a little FM DX, but when I was growing up, FM was the realm of old people and classical music, a place to be avoided at all cost, and that fact still lingers in my brain.

I have never been a QSL collector.

On the two previous sessions, I was also an avid shortwave listener. This time I'm not. Radio Australia & Radio New Zealand are the only stations I presently listen to.

 

[KR4BD]

At the age of 7, I started AM DXing about 1955 while living in Adrian, MI. I received an "All American Five" RCA desktop AM radio for Christmas that year. I guess my parents had figured that I had outgrown my Remco Crystal set which picked up ONE station, WABJ-1490! With this new radio, I was able to hear WBZ, WCAU, KSL (after WJJD signed off each evening), WSB, WABC, WOAi, etc. etc. In 1959, my father was transferred to Riverside, CA where I quickly resumed my DXing listening almost every night to WLS from Chicago. I soon met a friend whose father was a ham. He dad had an "excess", old RCA Communications receiver (Model ACR-111) that had been recently rebuilt and restored. It was a heavy monster with 16 tubes which covered .54 kHz to 32 mHz. To make a long story short, I ended up buying the radio from his dad with paper route money. With it, I was able to hear stations in Japan (JOIB) and Australia (2NR) just before sunrise almost every day in the winter months. It was a tremendous radio which, unfortunately, I had to sell around 1966 or 67 to raise funds for college.

Over the years, I have used many different radios. Right now, my "main" rig is my Ham Transceiver, an ICOM IC-746 which does a decent job on the AM band.

 

[radioman148]

In 1961 at age 11 I got a Zenith Trans Oceanic. I loved shortwave, but found that the AM tuner on it was far better then any radio I had used before. I knew since I started listening to radio in the 50s that out of town stations would come in at night, but I never realized until 1961 & that Zenith radio how much better I could hear them.
So even though I got the radio for shortwave which I did listen to, MW became my passion.

 

[fangio28]

1951 in Avenel (Middlesex County) New Jersey with a Hallicrafters S38B,
replaced with a Hallicrafters S40-B and a longwire antenna.
1959/60 did a little twilight DXing from University of Delaware in Newark,DE
1963-1965 with a Hammarlund HQ180A in (wonderful for DXing) Monmouth
Beach, NJ verified 86 countries (101 heard) and by then had over 2,100
verifications.
In the intervening years tried a little DXing (while married raising 3 kids,
starting my own company, etc) in both Dallas, Atlanta & Lighthouse
Point, FL.
2006 Moved to Coeur d'Alene, ID 100 miles south of BC Canada & found it
to be a terrific DX location for domestics & Western Canada. Mainly using Grundig 350 & KIA SOUL car radio.

 

[davideduardo]

In 1961 at age 11 I got a Zenith Trans Oceanic.

I got one of those in '58!

By '59 had an SX 99, then an HQ180 in '60 and that one followed me to Ecuador in '64. In Puerto Rico in 1970 and on I had an R390 (Hammurlund manufacture), and it travelled to Alabama, Arizona, and back to PR for the next 22 years. Finally, have a TenTec 350, a Drake R8 and an Icom R75 at three different locations now, but have little time for them...

In the 1958-1964 Northeast Ohio years, had somewhere around 85 countries, and around 2,300 veries. All states, too.

 

[gar hi]

1972 - when I was 10 years old.

It was still dark that Christmas morning but I couldn't wait any longer to open my presents.

One was a little GE portable AM/FM momo radio that I had asked for. So I opened it up, took it out of it's packaging, put the batteries in, and listened to see how it sounded.

Up near the end of the dial, I noticed a music station coming in strong like a local that I never noticed before. It was WKBW from Buffalo.
I still remember the song playing when I first heard it was "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon.

Once it was getting light outside and I went to listen to my radio again after we all had breakfast, I was puzzled as to why the station was so weak and fading away and eventually gone.

I went to tell my older brother about it (who had been into DXing for years) and he explained it all to me. I couldn't wait till it got dark again that day.

Listening to the radio was never the same after that.

 

[travisl5678]

In 2008 at age 11, I mostly do FM DX off my insignia portable, and listen to KFI under the covers at night

 

[fangio28]

DavidEduardo-
I too had the HQ180A and traded it in for the R390A...one of the worst
mistakes I ever made.

 

[gar hi]

In 2008 at age 11, I mostly do FM DX off my insignia portable, and listen to KFI under the covers at night

You know, you don't have to go too far from the Bay Area to be able to hear KFI during the day.

On a trip to LA in the summer of 77 with my brother, we crossed from 101 over into the central valley and started to hear KFI where we picked up Interstate 5 around Los Branos. It was late morning to early afternoon.

 

[dxer720]

I got into DXing back in the mid-70s. I was about 10. Like some of you, I didn't even know what DXing was. I had an early 60s Philco tube table AM radio that my dad gave me, so I could listen to Cubs games on WGN from my home in Delavan, WI. I found that I could get more stations after dark. I started keeping a "station book" (I called it) of what I could hear. In 76, a school friend gave me a red Panasonic R-1028 (which is still going strong) that I took everywhere. I remember WSM, WWWE (now WTAM). That radio doesn't have the best front-end, & I learned that I could get WWV & other (I didn't know at the time) SW stations if you tuned it just right & put it near an AC power cord that was plugged in.

Another friend at school had a Zenith Royal (don't remember model) & he got the same "stations" I got on my AM radio, but on SW & they were clearer & easier to tune in. I got a Realistic DX-40 for Christmas & got hooked on SW DXing. I thought it was cool (& spy-like) to be able to listen to stations from Russia & East Germany. I tried to log stations on SW, but the dial was too broad to get any real handle of what frequency I was on. I though that was neat to be able to hear more AM stations, too. At that time, I only used FM for the Top-40 station from Racine (WRKR 100.7) that we all listened to. I've still got the DX-40, too.

I didn't get into real logging till I bought my Panasonic RF-3100 (still use it) with money I had saved over the years. It's digital readout made finding stations easy.

Even in the late 70s I didn't use FM much. Other than WRKR, my dad would listen to easy listening or classical on the car radio of his 76 Oldsmobile. Mom would listen to the top-40 from WLS, WGEZ or WOKY. I think WRKR had an AM then, too. Even as a kid, I didn't like Disco. Mom sometimes listened to "Disco 99" (WNUW 99.1 from Milwaukee, now WMYX) on the stereo. Gradually, I started getting more into FM, when WZEE (Madison) first came on the air. My school friends were into WIBA-FM (also Madison). I really got into FM when I moved to Wausau for college, in 84. Since there were few FMs there, I got a real surprise when I got WRNO (99.5) all the way from New Orleans. It was that moment that the DXing bug bit me HARD! I though it was cool that the station I heard on SW was also on FM somewhere. I thought it would be cool to be in NO & be able to hear programs like "World of Radio" & "Radio Earth" on FM. I didn't know then, that they probably didn't do that.

To this day, I still use the 3100 on a longwire for SW DXing. I have more modern radios, but they just don't "feel" right.

 

[ddsparxx]

In about 1973, not exactly when, when I was 10, the AM DX bug bit with a novelty AM radio shaped like the binnoculars (it had 2X magnifying power) and a radio shaped like an antique car, (neither radio was sensitive) also when Oklahoma City's KOMA 1520 was a top 40 station at that time and I heard it at a friend's house in NM at night. I then stopped DXing for the next 3 to 4 decades mostly due to going to school, got into FM DXing with a GE Superadio III, yes FM only, sounded kind of silly), then with an expensive FM stereo component tuner. Recently, the FM DXing was reduced greatly after the IBOC garbage got put on FM. I returned to AM DXing about 4 years ago. Right now, my main radio is an old JRC NRD-515 with the Quantum QX v2 loop, for any FM DX it's the Sony F1HD and a Tecsun PL-380.

 

[radioman148]

In 1961 at age 11 I got a Zenith Trans Oceanic.

I got one of those in '58!

By '59 had an SX 99, then an HQ180 in '60 and that one followed me to Ecuador in '64. In Puerto Rico in 1970 and on I had an R390 (Hammurlund manufacture), and it travelled to Alabama, Arizona, and back to PR for the next 22 years. Finally, have a TenTec 350, a Drake R8 and an Icom R75 at three different locations now, but have little time for them...

In the 1958-1964 Northeast Ohio years, had somewhere around 85 countries, and around 2,300 veries. All states, too.

Which one of those radios is your favorite?

 

[MR5229]

You know, you don't have to go too far from the Bay Area to be able to hear KFI during the day.

On a trip to LA in the summer of 77 with my brother, we crossed from 101 over into the central valley and started to hear KFI where we picked up Interstate 5 around Los Branos. It was late morning to early afternoon.

That's still true. A year or two ago, I was coming back from Bakersfield heading towards Oakland. At the I-580/I-5 merge, KFI was still coming in, and that was around 3pm. But this was in the wintertime, so I'm not sure if that was early skywave or not. Driving farther north, the splatter from 650 KSTE all but wiped KFI out so it might've been groundwave. Conversely, in Bakersfield that morning, I was able to receive both KNBR and KCBS-AM and that was at 9 AM. Couldn't get KGO-AM because of a local on 800.

 

[travisl5678]

Down in King City a few weeks ago I was able to pick up KGIL at 8am, KFI was blocked by a local on 630

 

[musicman3355]

Summer 2009... I started getting interested in picking up AM's from different states, not to mention I first noticed about tropo when I got the San Diego stations in LA. Never have gotten an e-skip though

 

[gar hi]

You know, you don't have to go too far from the Bay Area to be able to hear KFI during the day.

On a trip to LA in the summer of 77 with my brother, we crossed from 101 over into the central valley and started to hear KFI where we picked up Interstate 5 around Los Branos. It was late morning to early afternoon.

That's still true. A year or two ago, I was coming back from Bakersfield heading towards Oakland. At the I-580/I-5 merge, KFI was still coming in, and that was around 3pm. But this was in the wintertime, so I'm not sure if that was early skywave or not. Driving farther north, the splatter from 650 KSTE all but wiped KFI out so it might've been groundwave. Conversely, in Bakersfield that morning, I was able to receive both KNBR and KCBS-AM and that was at 9 AM. Couldn't get KGO-AM because of a local on 800.

According to Radio Locator, which is often quite conservative on their "fringe" limits, both KNBR and KCBS should be heard in Bakersfield on a ground wave, as it's within their limits for both stations.

They don't show KFI's fringe as reaching quite as far as where I heard it but it most definitely had to be groundwave that day and that time of year. The central valley has good ground conductivity. I could not get KFI at all during the day the time I was staying in Santa Cruz and looked for it and that's about as far north as where I first heard it in the central valley.

According to Radio Locator, I shouldn't be able to hear 560 WQAM Miami here in Tampa daytime but it can be heard in parts of this area where there's not too much splatter from 570 WTBN.

 

[musicman3355]

It seems you could get KFI throughout almost all of California. I'm pretty sure you can get KNX in the day as well.

I noticed in Las Vegas I could get a weak signal of KFI 640 and even KNX 1070, despite the local on 1060. I was also able to get other California stations in LV, such as KOGO 600, KAVL 610 and KFMB 760.

 

[davideduardo]

In 1961 at age 11 I got a Zenith Trans Oceanic.

I got one of those in '58!

By '59 had an SX 99, then an HQ180 in '60 and that one followed me to Ecuador in '64. In Puerto Rico in 1970 and on I had an R390 (Hammurlund manufacture), and it travelled to Alabama, Arizona, and back to PR for the next 22 years. Finally, have a TenTec 350, a Drake R8 and an Icom R75 at three different locations now, but have little time for them...

In the 1958-1964 Northeast Ohio years, had somewhere around 85 countries, and around 2,300 veries. All states, too.

Which one of those radios is your favorite?

R 390 by far.

 

[davideduardo]

DavidEduardo-
I too had the HQ180A and traded it in for the R390A...one of the worst
mistakes I ever made.

I had the good fortune to get a factory fresh R390 direct from Hammarlund, which put a few overproduction units for sale. It came in the full double oilcloth wrapped military packaging!

Because it was new and freshly calibrated, it DXed circles around the HQ180... both in sensitivity and selectivity. But as it aged, it became less and less stable, and I had to have a bunch of test gear to keep it in alignment as the mechanical parts wore.

 

[radiorob2.0]

My first DX experience happened Christmas 1979. I received a Vane Jones book and a GE mono cassette radio. An early catch was PJB Netherland Antilles, I was shocked to see the power level.

Another phase happened in 1989 with the purchase of a Realistic DX-440 and an interest in amateur radio. Later that year I purchase a GE Superadio II while visiting family along the North Carolina Coast. Their home was on the edge of the Intercoastal Waterway. Soon after adding batteries I found music at 560, it was WQAM Miami running at the time an oldies format. I then fired up the DX-440 and heard a very faint signal at 560. The Superadio was my new best friend.

I purchased a Radio Shack DX-390 in 2000 when I started a job that required extensive travel. The FM presets are still set for the big city allocations for layovers in Chicago, Detroit and downtime at LAX. Around the same time I received a Sangean CCrane radio as a gift.

These days the Tecsun looks to be a nice DX toy to add to my receiver collection.