DX RX The Doctor of DX prescribes the answers to your problems, low and high, near and far. A how to of what for, by Mike(aka Billy)Graham, NE1V

“Although I’ve been licensed for 33 years, I have been an avid DXer and contester only in the past 12 years since moving to NH. Way back in my Novice and early General class days, I operated exclusively on CW because that is the only mode a Heathkit DX-20 or DX-40 operated. Not that it mattered all that much; the reconditioned Hallicrafters S-38 receiver I used my first year had a bandwidth as wide as a barn door with as much selectivity. I graduated to an HQ-170 (one of the old Hammarlund breadbox designs) when I got my General, a considerable improvement.

I remained “rock-bound” for about a year after I got my General ticket so I spent a lot of time rag-chewing on CW down in the lower part of 40 and 80 meters. An external VFO one Christmas opened up the world of 20 meters and beyond for me. It didn’t take long before I found a CW county hunters net on 20 and 40, getting me hooked on county hunting. I spent the rest of my high school years and breaks from college chasing mobiles all over the country. One of the more memorable stations I worked was Al, W8DUS, from western Michigan. Al frequently made trips to the eastern Tennessee area, usually taking as many different routes as he could to put out counties. I think Al must have given a big chunk of the counties in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee in the years he was driving down there. A couple years after I moved to NJ, I went back to Ohio to the Dayton Hamvention and had an eyeball with Al. I was surprised to learn that he became K4FW, president of TENTEC Electronics. He fondly recalled working me many times during his trips. His wife learned the code so she could do the logging, often recognizing a call in the first 2 letters simply because of the operator’s fist. (NOTE: Hams who have been licensed for more than 15 years will know what I mean.) My county totals are somewhere around 3025 confirmed out of 3078 +/- in the country.

Along about 1974 I finally bought my first NEW rig, a Yaesu FT-101B transceiver. The ‘101B was a state-of-the-art transceiver that featured a Clarifier - Yaesu’s fancy name for receiver incremental tuning. I felt a bit awkward not using a rig that was not all TUBES. Operating in state QSO parties became a joy instead of agony, making me a lot more efficient chasing counties. It also made copying SSB a lot easier so that I could have long ragchews with AG8X back in Ohio.

Antennas for me were almost always dipoles on 40 and 80 meters. I did have a TA-33 JR. tribander when I lived in Ohio. I was startled at the juicy DX I could hear in the late 60s, something to do with sunspots I later learned. I managed to work about 60 countries back then, some of them since deleted. However, for a kid in school with zilch for money, sending out dozens of QSLs and the complicated (for me) bureau system made DX chasing a bit more expensive than I cared for. I’ll stick with county hunting.

When I moved to NH in 1985, I finally got a place with room for antennas. Within months I commandeered several NARC members into helping me haul a crankup tower home. I now had the tallest tower I ever owned, “soaring” up to 55 feet. I topped it off with a TA-33 JR., a second one that I had bought when I lived in NJ. The beam was almost light enough to carry up the tower and suited my purposes well since I didn’t need to run power on the high bands for county hunting. I also bought an almost- new ICOM 735, again stepping up to the state-of-the-art in ham gear.

It didn’t take me long to notice that Europeans were considerably louder here on the 20 meter county hunter SSB net than in NJ, even off the back of the beam. I started playing around in the DX contests that I ran into in the Fall. I gradually found myself spending more time looking for DX than counties because it seemed so easy to find it from my new QTH. I started working 200- 300 stations in the CQ Worldwide and ARRL DX contests, usually confining myself to looking for new ones or new bands. By 1988, I was up to the magical 100 countries threshold for the DXCC CW award.

The turning point in my DXing and contesting came during the 1988 CQ Worldwide SSB contest. Rex, K1HI, invited a team of NARC members over to operate his station for the whole 48 hours to help the Yankee Clipper Contest Club competition. Sterling, AK1K; Rich, KB4N; Gary, K8LT; a German exchange student whose call I have forgotten, Rex, and I got together to do some serious contesting. Bill, WB1BRE, showed up with a strange briefcase that turned out to be his QRP packet station. I had heard of packet but had little idea of what it was. Bill’s portable packet station consisted of an ICOM 02AT, an MFJ-1270 TNC, and a Tandy 100 computer (not much more than a calculator by today’s standards). Rex had heard of the DX packetcluster spotting network and wanted to used it during the contest. Using a ¼-wave ground- plane on a pole off the deck, we were able to monitor the cluster. I say “monitor” because we just didn’t have a good setup to stay connected. As the contest progressed, we found ourselves furiously writing down calls that scrolled by on the screen, checking the paper logs, and scrambling to work a “new one” for that band. When the final whistle blew, Rex had a new personal best for the SSB contest and I was firmly hooked on the packet idea.

It didn’t take me long to rig up a ground- plane, hook up my ICOM 02AT, MFJ-1270, and dust off the old Heathkit H89 computer to use as a monitor. Within a month, I was ready to try it out for the November CQ Worldwide CW contest. Using packet spotting in a contest added a whole new dimension to operating. It was like shooting fish in a barrel when it came to finding and working new DX. It also could be a little embarrassing to rely on it too much instead of tuning the bands in “search and pounce”. As I participated in more contests, however, and my country totals mounted up, I learned many of the tricks the top contesters use. Packet use has become a separate category in most contests today, and I think that was a good move by contest sponsors. Being spoon-fed contacts by others does little to improve one’s operating skills.”

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Next month I’ll feature John, WS1E, top- gun DX’er and contester, particularly in RTTY Contests. Until then 73 es best DX.

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