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

[cd637299]

Seriously started AM DXn early 1974 (age 14) after being impressed hearing ZNS-1 1540 Bahamas (no real whoop)....although my first true "DX" I heard had to have been 580 WDBO Orlando in late '66/early '67....I did not know one could hear stations outside of our city (I lived near Miami).

Seriously got into FM/TV DXn I suppose the same year....keeping logs anyway. I do recall, earlier, the weird faraway TV signals that came in on ch 2 when my local NET/PBS was off the air in the afternoons, especially (what I now know as) WKAQ-TV PR playing a Spanish-dubbed "I Wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener" commercial....that had to have been 1967 or 68.

cd

 

[radioman148]

For me, Summer of 1961. Junior High School. I discovered my grandparents' 1937-vintage Zenith 4-band console.

http://www.oldradiozone.com/Z_12U159.html

I took a 25' length of antenna wire and hooked it up to a large piece of metal window screen material and hooked it up to the antenna terminal. I was off and running....AM/SW and ham bands.

.

Good looking console.

 

[schmave]

Probably 1988 or so for me. I remember always being able to hear WLW at night in Columbus, but since Cincinnati was so close and it came in 24/7 I never investigated much further. I'm guessing it was my dad or grandfather who showed me how many 50K stations we could get at night. I thought it was the greatest getting to hear the Cubs at night because we didn't get WGN-TV for a few years on cable. I know that's where my love affair with baseball on the radio began. In those days, I remember hearing both New York teams, the Cubs, Reds, White Sox, Tigers, Cardinals, Braves, Twins, Pirates, Phillies and even the Rangers.
I'll never get back the awe of hearing for the first time so many faraway stations we all take for granted. It opened up a whole new world.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

AM: Started this around 15. Never logged anything but heard KOA and WOAI then quickly lost interest when I didn't think I could top San Antonio. Gained interest again at 23 and started logging AM in 2005. I've logged 811 stations including KFI and KNX just in the last year. (Note to Midwesterners: It can still be done!!) KNX is my distance record on AM right now at 1,890 miles. I don't have the sophisticated equipment needed to log TA's though.

What equipment do you have?

I've logged four TPs from my location about 12 miles east of San Diego, CA:
774 JOUB Akita, Japan -- I have a local on 760, KFMB, whose 5kW/50kW DA-N is 7.29mi @ 320.85°. That recording was made right after KFMB switched to 5kW day operation.
594 JOAK Tokyo, Japan (skip ahead to about 1:20 or so) -- Local 600 KOGO runs 5kW DA-1 and IBOC from 7.69mi @ 249.19°
657 Pyongyang, North Korea
972 HLCA Dangjon, South Korea

All the preceeding were logged with a $70 ($46 + $24 shipping) Tecsun PL-380 and ~$60-70 Select-A-Tenna for which I paid $40 used.

 

[Tom Wells]

For me, Summer of 1961. Junior High School. I discovered my grandparents' 1937-vintage Zenith 4-band console.

http://www.oldradiozone.com/Z_12U159.html

I took a 25' length of antenna wire and hooked it up to a large piece of metal window screen material and hooked it up to the antenna terminal. I was off and running....AM/SW and ham bands.

With that good of a radio in 1961, you weren't just off and running, you were flying.
Did you get to lay claim on it?

 

[cyberdad]

For me, Summer of 1961. Junior High School. I discovered my grandparents' 1937-vintage Zenith 4-band console.

http://www.oldradiozone.com/Z_12U159.html

I took a 25' length of antenna wire and hooked it up to a large piece of metal window screen material and hooked it up to the antenna terminal. I was off and running....AM/SW and ham bands.

With that good of a radio in 1961, you weren't just off and running, you were flying.
Did you get to lay claim on it?

Yeah....I used it all during junior high school and high school. By the time I got to college I had been given a hallicrafters S-120 and took that to school with me. In the summer of '76, I got the Zenith going again and it worked great for about a year. Then we moved. It sat in a garage and I finally sold it to a collector. The only significant problem I had with it for the decade and a half that I used it/owned it was that the tuning knob broke a couple of times. I managed to re-string it using a leather boot lace with so-so results. If worse came to worse, I could reach into the chassis and just tune it with my hand.

It didn't work very well on the "ultra short wave band" 20-50 mhz IIRC. But on standard shortwave, 80,40, and 20 meter ham bands it was great. Also did quite well on regular AM, although it wasn't all that selective. I remember KFI being a fairly regular nighttime catch, for example.

 

[Lawppy]

What equipment do you have?

I just use a GE Superadio for my AM DX'ing.

 

[Tom Wells]

For me, Summer of 1961. Junior High School. I discovered my grandparents' 1937-vintage Zenith 4-band console.

http://www.oldradiozone.com/Z_12U159.html

I took a 25' length of antenna wire and hooked it up to a large piece of metal window screen material and hooked it up to the antenna terminal. I was off and running....AM/SW and ham bands.

With that good of a radio in 1961, you weren't just off and running, you were flying.
Did you get to lay claim on it?

Yeah....I used it all during junior high school and high school. By the time I got to college I had been given a hallicrafters S-120 and took that to school with me. In the summer of '76, I got the Zenith going again and it worked great for about a year. Then we moved. It sat in a garage and I finally sold it to a collector. The only significant problem I had with it for the decade and a half that I used it/owned it was that the tuning knob broke a couple of times. I managed to re-string it using a leather boot lace with so-so results. If worse came to worse, I could reach into the chassis and just tune it with my hand.

It didn't work very well on the "ultra short wave band" 20-50 mhz IIRC. But on standard shortwave, 80,40, and 20 meter ham bands it was great. Also did quite well on regular AM, although it wasn't all that selective. I remember KFI being a fairly regular nighttime catch, for example.

I'm sorry about the selectivity. Maybe it had just drifted. I bought a '37 Zenith Hi-Dollar tabletop and restored it for a couple as their wedding gift. It was as sharp as a brand new Wilkinson Sword razor blade.
The knob itself broke? I Know the band shift linkage rod is cheap pot metal and often breaks....
Zenith made the unfortunate decision to use a plastic that has not had good dimensional stbility over the years.
But I think a lot of the parts have been reproduced.
I have a spool or 3 of dial cord, it just figures most of my best radios use some edge-driven circular method (Philcos).

None of 'em worked very well above 20 mhz. I had a 1935 Midwest super-duper 21 tuber that was hot as a pistol, but
still was no prize winner on the high band. I put about a hundred hours of work into it from basket case to like-new performance,
but never cared for the sound of the the push-pull dual pentode outputs. It was HONKIN LOUD, but not nearly as realistic as my 1936 Philcos. The owner refused to rematerialize over several years, and I sold it for over 3k to someone who really cares.
Surprised kinda that I don't miss it. It's too bad you didn't get to hang onto the Zenith. I hope it's still alive somewhere.

 

[MarioMania]

KNX is no where to be found in the daytime, In Vallejo

 

[kenrayc]

My first DXing was in 1972 in Clovis CA when I was 11, my Grandmother had a Motorola tube style table top radio and my first DX'ing stations were XTREA (The Mighty) 690 and KSL 1160.

 

[cyberdad]

I'm sorry about the selectivity. Maybe it had just drifted. I bought a '37 Zenith Hi-Dollar tabletop and restored it for a couple as their wedding gift. It was as sharp as a brand new Wilkinson Sword razor blade.
The knob itself broke? I Know the band shift linkage rod is cheap pot metal and often breaks....
It's too bad you didn't get to hang onto the Zenith. I hope it's still alive somewhere.

The selectivity wasn't bad....just so-so. Strong local signals overpowered weaker adjacents. Other than that it was okay.The Halicrafters S-120 was no better. As for the tuning, what broke was the dial cord. Yeah, I wish I could've hung on to the radio, but by '76 I was in my twenties with kids, bills, etc. and the cash came in handy. (I was working in radio, after all...LOL!) And at the time, I had a reasonably decent Radio Shack portable. I also had a couple of antique slot machines that I still wish I'd kept as well!

 

[Icangelp]

Seems like many of us became "hooked" on DX through a chance encounter with a distant station received on some junky home or car radio, and a few through a relative who was a DX'er. The hobby may not be as exotic as it used to be what with far fewer foreign broadcasters on AM & shortwave, but it is still a thrill to hear a distant station when it pops up for a few seconds, minutes, or hours.

I'm glad that with as many things competing for our free time these days, there is a younger generation of DX'ers who enjoy the hobby.

That said, the end of MW & shortwave broadcasting is inevitable I'm afraid, probably FM too. When, I can't predict, but I plan on enjoying my DX right to the bitter end.

Long live DX.