I understand that there is a lot of people that don´t know
what a so called DX-er is doing, and then there are people who think they know
what a DX-er does. A lot of people thinks a dx-er is a radio amateur, but that
is not true. A DX-er only listens to radio stations. He never transmitts
himself, neither does he need any certificates to be a DX-er. Incase You not are
familliar to what we do, here is a small description ...
DX-ing, is a hobby where you listen to radio stations from
all of the world, trying to verify them and keep book on what radiostations have
been heard. Of course it would be very easy to tell all friends that you have
heard a radiostation that is very difficult to here in your place, but sooner or
later someone wants some kind of proof, and then you need some kind of
verification to show.
When a dx-er has heard a radiostation, he writes down the
program informations from the transmission, together with information about
weather conditions, frequency where the station have been heard, date of
transmission, how well he could hear it and any other information he thinks can
be usefull for the staff on the radiostation, and then he sends this information
to the radiostation. The radiostation then, hopefully, ansvers by sending you a
QSL-card, a verification card or letter where they informs that it actually was
their radiostation you where listening to. Many radiostation also sends other
materials as transmission schedules, rulers, magazines or stickers and pennants.
DX-ers then collect these cards, just like other collect stamps, only with a
small difference, you don´t have any use of cards that someone else has
received. You can not buy them from friends because they are personally
addressed and is just a proof that YOU have listened to the station. Then of
course there are radiostations that never have sent a QSL-card or letter, but as
long as a dx-er sends his reports to these stations, he can receive a
verification from that station. If you don´t send the report, the chance of
receiving a verification is absolutely 0%. I recently received a QSL-card from
radio station Uganda, that as far as I know haven´t answered very often in the
last 10 years. These kind of verifications, of course, disserves a special place
in the QSL-collections.
Then there are several other benefits with the hobby, I
mentioned the stamp collectors for example. They get stamps from foreign
countries quit easilly through this hobby. I have also heard that, at least one
man found himself a wife through this hobby.
Some DX-clubs also have competitions in received
verifications where they give you one point for every new radiostation that you
have heard, and one point for every new country you have heard. In this way you
can get a maximum of 2 points for one verification. These points are then
counted together one year at a time and the winner gets some kind of a price.
As You understand. it gets harder and harder to get points
when you get more and more verifications. You have to find new radiostations all
the time. This is great for the beginner... he gets lots of points in the
beginning and probably also winns the first competition he takes part of
(...that is if he is the only beginner taking part of the competition).
Ok... so now you think that you need a receiver that costs
you a fortune if you wants to become a dx-er. Wrong again... For the beginner,
any set of radio will do as long as there can be heard radiostations on it. Of
course it is easyer if the radioset has a digital frequency display that shows
what frequency you are listening to at the moment, but usually the radiostation
also informs you about this whithin their transmissions. Then you need somekind
of aerial too... If the receiver has a telescope antenna , this will do in the
beginning. On mediumwave however, you need an external antenna or a ferrit
antenna that usually is built into the receiver. The external antenna can very
easilly be built with a piece of copperwire. For example 30 meters of copperwire
with one end high up in a tree, and the other end attached to the radio antenn
jacket, or directly to the telescope antenna works fine. This is exactly the
antenna I use here at home, and I have heard some very nice stations with this
equipment. To make the reporting easier, you also can connect a cassett recorder
to the radio and record the transmission, so that you later can listen to the
parts of the transmission that you did not hear clearly at the first
time.
Adresses and other informations about the radiostations can be
found in books like The World Radio Handbook or equivalent litterature. Dx-clubs
usually have these books, or at least someone more experienced knows where you
can buy one yourself. Then of course you will find some websites here on the
internet, try to search with "shortwave stations" for example. There are also
several magazines on the market that are specialized on this hobby, but usually
you have to subscribe to them in order to get them. The prices are usually very
low, so that´s a very good way to get news about what can be heard at the moment
and adress informations to new stations and so on. Jakobstads DX-club r.f. is
the local DX-club here in Jakobstad and it is member of an umrella organisation
named Finlands Svenska DX-förbund. FSDXF also makes a magazine named
Frekvensnytt, and we have subscribers from all over the nordic countries. The
magazine is written in Swedish and contents shortwave news, mediumwave tips,
loggings, QSL-statistics and so on. Also pirate radiostations have their own
page in the magazine, (a pirate radiostation is a radiostation whitout
permission to transmit, in other words, it is illegal!).
Nowadays mediumwave probably is the most common band to
listen to, but you can also listen to shortwave, (my favorite....), longwave or
FM. There are also TV-dx-ers, that use their TV-sets to look at tv-programs from
other countries.
I am a member of the Jakobstads DX-Club r.f. and we have
weekly meetings on sundays at 19:00. If You´re interested in this hobby, please
feel free to visit us. The club is situated in the basement of the store "2
bröder" here in Jakobstad and the postal adress is: JDXC r.f., P.O. Box 9,
FIN-68601 JAKOBSTAD. At this moment I am the official contactperson for our
club, so feel free to contact me if You have any questions conserning the hobby
or the club.
Over to another hobby of mines, that is winemaking. Since
1987 I have been making wines for own use and to give away as presents to
friends. Sometimes the wine is very good, other times we have had to throw it
away. Best of all winesets that I have bought, is probably a wine called Citrus
pearl. Citrus pearl had a small taste of citrus fruits and it was very good.
Unfortunately I have not found the wineset in the stores since 1989. We have
tried several other winesets also, but in my opinion, "Citrus Pearl" had the
best taste of them all. Then we have tried to make wines from own fruits too,
and that is allmost more fun. You´ll never know what the wine will taste as when
it is ready. One very good wine was when I made it from strawberries and
rhubarb. A wine made from strawberries only will not taste very much, but
together with rhubarb it was superior. As a small tip for all you who have
planned to make wines from own berries or fruits is that if you can make a good
juice or drink from the fruit combination, you also can make a good wine from
it. Another tip is that you allways should use fresch fruits and
berries.
Applewine is another wine that mostly will be good, but
sometimes, depending of what kind of apples you have used, it will not taste of
anything or it will have a very strong taste, and isn´t allways too good to
drink.
If you like to get the some colour to your wine, without getting
to much taste, you can use blueberries in a small amount together with the other
ingredients that you make your wine from.
Sometimes the wine isn´t perfectly
clear after the natural clearing, (by letting it stand still in the fermentation
bucket), and then you can use a filter to clear the rest of the wine with.
Several different brands are on the market, and the one I have used is a 5 litre
bottle into witch you can pump some pressure and from witch the wine then flows
through rubber or plastic tubes to a filter, and then to another bottle. This
works fine with wines, but when I tried it with beer that I made, it filtred
away all of the yeast, and I could not get any bubbles into the beer after that.
The beer however, didn´t taste of any yeast after this procedure.