I just started DXing again this year after being out of the hobby since about 1990. I was active during my teenage years in the 1980s and was affiliated with such radio clubs as IRCA and the ACE. I was primarily interested in shortwave pirate radio DXing, mediumwave DXing, and shortwave utility monitoring. My equipment was modest and included various old tube “boat anchors” that usually gave poor results but kept the room warm on winter nights. Antennas used were nothing more than a long wire strung through some tree branches outside. At some point I got a little more serious and saved enough money to buy a General Electric #7-2990A “World Monitor”. Finally – a receiver with a digital frequency counter! Never mind the fact that the VFO drifted like a log down a river – I could finally “see” what frequency I was on with some degree of accuracy!
The next major purchase was a Microlog “SWL” cartridge for my Commodore 64 computer. The “SWL” allowed digital mode reception to be captured and decoded using the C64 allowing clear text viewing and printing of non-encrypted RTTY, CW, etc. In 1986, this was indeed high tech stuff, or at least it seemed like it to me!
Electronic messages with other DXers occurred through computer bulletin board systems and many long distance telephone charges to Kansas City’s ANARC BBS. Cassette tapes of recorded DX receptions were happily traded with other DXers across the country and from overseas.. I have numerous air checks of shortwave pirates, numbers stations, and other curiosities that I’m slowly migrating to MP3. The same goes for my humble collection of ’80s pirate QSL cards which I’m beginning to digitize.
By about 1990 I left the hobby and moved on to other things, but the DX bug has struck again twenty years later, and here I am writing about it. I have a lot good memories “DXing the ’80s” and I’ll be revisiting them here from time to time while learning how the hobby has changed since then. This thing called IBOC sounds very evil…
1986 WRNO QSL
Posted by kilokat7 
