[HCDX] Why I'm a SWLer

[David Hochfelder <hochfeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

1. What was your first exposure to Shortwave Listening? How old
were you?

2. What drew you into Shortwave Listening as a hobby? How did you
start out?

	I'll answer both here.  My first exposure to radio hobbies was picking up 
distant BCB stations on an old tube clock radio.  I was probably about ten 
years old and this was the mid-1970s.  It was a revelation to me that I 
could hear stations from hundreds of miles away.  I particularly enjoyed 
listening to weather reports during the severe winters we had in the late 
1970s, so that I could compare our weather in Chicago to places like 
Buffalo and Minneapolis.  A few years after that my family got a cheap 
shortwave, covering 4-12 MHz, through their Readers' Digest subscription 
somehow.  I became fascinated with all the stations I could hear from all 
these distant countries.  I QSL'd about a dozen broadcasters, then sometime 
in my mid-teens I lost much of my interest in radio.  I owned my own 
shortwave radio from the late 1980s onward, but didn't use it much except 
during the fall of 1989.  It was very interesting to tune in R. Berlin 
International and other Eastern Bloc outlets when the Berlin Wall was 
coming down.  I casually listened after that, and got back into radio 
hobbies generally much more seriously 18 months ago.


3. What do you now do most in this hobby? Tropical Band DX? =20
Medium Wave DX? News Listening? Can you list what you do most, to
least, in some order of interest?

	In order of interest:  MW DXing; amateur radio, mainly HF CW; listening 
for SW pirates.  I don't do much listening to international broadcasters, 
and only rarely visit the tropical bands.

4. What do you wish you knew more about, in this hobby?

	Foreign languages, like Spanish.  My lack of understanding of Spanish 
stops me from enjoying tropical band DXing.

5. What do you do during the summer, in this hobby?

	I do more listening to international SW broadcasters in the summer.  I 
also operate my amateur station more.

6. What part of the day do you do must of your listening?

	After 10 PM local time.

7. Do you listen while mobile?

	No:  I don't have a shortwave radio or amateur transceiver in the car.

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