RadioBanter - View Single Post - What is the difference between shortwave dxing and swling.

September 27th 04, 08:37 PM

wrote:
On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 17:34:46 -0500, clifto wrote:
Sometimes DX is DX because it's rare, not necessarily because it's
distant. Don't take the acronym thing too seriously.

So just change the meaning of the acronym to suit your
purposes, right?

I'm not the one who changed it. It's changed over time, the way the
rest of the language changes.

Years ago I was calling CQ until I was blue in the face. Finally, someone
returned; his callsign placed him in Guadeloupe. I ran in the kitchen
and asked dad where that was, and when he told me it was in the
Caribbean I was disappointed; "that's not very far." Still, I had a
nice conversation with the guy for a while. Then we signed... and the
20 meter band became completely unusable, because everybody in creation
wanted to work this (then) rare country. That's when other people
explained to me that a station doesn't have to be distant to be DX.

Again, what do you do after you've heard a station from fully halfway
around the world? I've heard Australia loud and clear, easy catch. I've
worked hundreds of Australian hams. Go ahead and tell me that there is
nothing more to the hobby, since I've heard the very farthest stations.

Failing that, feel free to tell me in a brief sound bite what the
essential desirable achievement of the hobby is.

--
At the end of the new Kerry ad: "I'm John Kerry, and I approved of this
ad before I voted against it."