Lee Freshwater wrote:
"It is with deep regret that I announce the closing of the AMLOGBOOK. I no
longer have the time nor the desire to spend the countless hours of updating
and keeping track of AM Radio stations. I have not DX'ed in three years and do
not see any Dxing in my immediate future.
"Noise levels have gotten to the point where Dxing for me is a waste of time,
not to mention the lack of anything worth listening to on this forgotten radio
band."
To which I respond: I know the feeling.
It has been only recently that I realized that I gave up DX'ing at least five
years ago, but I had not given up keeping (or at least trying to keep) a
complete list of AM stations in a format that I found useful, thinking that
when I returned to the hobby, I'd be ready. A couple of years ago, I bought a
Perseus and a computer with enough memory to handle it ... but I never hooked
them up. I thought it'd be nice to add an phase an ALA loop and and a 300-foot
mini-bog and concentrate of phasing QRM to concentrate on Mexican stations.
But between genealogy, writing for the weekly Krum News, keeping up with
friends on Facebook, following local high school sports, etc., when would I
find the time to check every frequency at the top of the hour to cull out
station breaks for my taped collection thereof?
I've joked that I invented DX'ing back in 1947, when I was a seventh-grader.
I'd never heard of the hobby, but I did have a White's Radio Log and I and a
couple of buddies in Corvallis, Oregon, started listing the stations we could
hear. We haunted the local commercial radio station, KRUL, and I learned about
Broadcasting Magazine, Radio Daily, and their yearbooks, which gave much more
detail than White's, or Stevenson's. For a couple of weekends, I commandeered a
desk at KRUL and typed the complete list of AM stations for my own use.
I visited KOAC, the Oregon State non-commercial station and got to know Grant
Feikert, the long-time chief engineer, W7DE, who tried to encourage me to
become a ham. I learned about QSL'ing from Grant, but never in my wildest
dreams thought broadcast stations would QSL reception reports.
In 1950, when I was 15, I bought my first subscription to Broadcasting
Magazine. It cost $7.00, and included the Yearbook! But in 1950, I discovered
Ken Boord's Radio Television News shortwave DX column and realized that
broadcast stations on the shortwave bands did encourage listener reports and
rewarded DX'ers with QSLs. I jumped into SWL'g with a bang, and actually was
among the first to hear a couple of stations, 4VEH and TGNA, becoming a regular
monitor for the latter. I did hear a couple of unusual AM stations in 1950,
WHHM-1340, Memphis, and WLDS-1180, Jacksonville IL, and, despite my skepticism
about AM stations QSL'g, I sent reports to those two and was surprised when I
received actual QSL-cards from each.
But I was hooked on SWBC, more-or-less abandoning BCB. I kept up my
subscription to Broadcasting, I kept up my fandom for KRUL, and when I started
scorekeeping and story-writing for the equivalent of Little League in 1951, by
the time I got to high school, I was doing half-time and post-game stats for
KRUL's high school play-by-play broadcasts ... purely as a hobby.
It wasn't until 1955 that I joined a radio club, URDXC, then NNRC, but still
concentrated on SWBC. In 1955, I took my first full-time radio job, at
KCOV-1240, Corvallis, and that winter, it became my duty to verify a taped
reception report of our sign-off from Roy Millar in Issaquah, Washington. Roy
introduced me to NRC, I did a DX program that drew valid reception reports from
as far east as Oklahoma City and as far west as Dunedin, N.Z., plus a couple of
incorrect tentatives from DX'ers farther east whom I later learned were of
dubious reputation ...
Thus began my connection with NRC, and, later, IRCA, as well as my broadcasting
career, the growing knowledge of the hobby, its history, its mystique ... and I
have been eyeball-to-eyeball with many of the grandest names in the DX hobby
in following 57 years.
I'll be in Minneapolis next month, renewing acquaintances and meeting new
friends ... but, Lee, I have to admit -- I'm not a DX'er anymore.
John Callarman, KA9SPA, Family Genealogist, Retired Newspaper Editor,
DX-oyente, Krum TX (AKA Qal R. Mann, Krumudgeon)
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