It appears that
there is just no way to pass on to today's teenagers the wonder of radio,
There's no opportunity. I would imagine that ham radio was much
bigger in the general public conciousness in 1956.
I just stumbled upon ham radio in 1995 at 15 years old as a result of
thorough geekery and a little bit of CB. DX hooked me. None of my
friends got it.
You can turn the radio on and let them listen to the beeping or the
donald duck voices and tell them that they're coming in from faraway
Place X and they just don't get it. I think it's because DX isn't
about distance, but that's all you can really talk about... it's not
about contacting foreign nations; you can do that on the internet.
DX is about the quality the band has when the K index is zero and it's
four in the morning and the lake effect snow is howling outside...
It's about staring out the window into the darkness as you spin the
knob and you're not in the shack; not really, anyway. You're out
*there* somewhere, looking for the DX.
DX is about the emptiness of a quiet open band. It's about the
potential to trip across a new one faintly bleeping a CQ and being the
only one up to answer.
I get it. Not many people these days do. I think the magic is there
but it's changed and it's more subtle. Instant contact with any point
on the globe is routine.... but you have to know how to get a hold of
them. My girlfriend gets it. There used to be a phone booth out in
the middle of the Mojave desert. It was for some mining town; they'd
drive four or five miles out to the booth to use the phone if they
needed to. Most of the time it was an empty phone booth in the middle
of the desert with no one around for miles. She used to call it and
listen to it ring...
Put a signal out there, see what comes back...
Dan
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