I started ultralight DXing in 2011. My goal was to hear as many stations as I could. Now almost 8 years later, I am more focused and these days I like to have more purpose about my radio hobby. I have run a couple of “long term” projects where I focus on various stations, this has been a mix of logging stations both in total number and also trying for “DX”, that is stations a long way away.
Over the past 20 years “hobbies” have been a major issue for me. I find the ultralight DXing hobby to be a really good fit for me; this is for a number of reasons as it combines a number of my previous interests in to one hobby:
Radio Communications: Back when I first got interested in radio as a teenager one of the things I most enjoyed was listening to distant stations on the AM and Shortwave bands. This was something I have not done as much over the past few years and I have missed it. The cost of equipment is quite low and it is easy to source locally or via the Internet. Whereas a scanner can start at $200 and go up in to the thousands, broadcast receivers are much cheaper and unless you want to get very serious a basic $60 radio will do 95% of what you need. I have been very happy with how well my ultralight radios have worked over the years.
After 15 years in the radio scanning hobby on and off, it had lost some of its appeal to me; you can only hear so many taxi drivers calling for jobs or a rubbish removal company talking about bin pickups before you get sick of it. As I work during the day my scanning time is limited to a night time during the week or of a weekend, while you can sometimes hear interesting things during these times most of the radio traffic, I am interested in happens during the day, while I am at work. As shortwave and medium wave broadcasting is a 24/7 business at any time of the day or night, I can be comfortable that I will be able to pick up something of interest
Photography: My various portable ultralight DXing sessions have allowed me to take some photos / videos which I have found really enjoyable. This also gives me a chance / excuse to get outside which is a positive for my health.
Ultralight DXing is the perfect hobby for me, it combines a number of my interests and it has been one of the main reasons I have been able to drag myself out from my illness and become the person who I used to be again.
DX500 Project. I have recently started a new project, I call this “DX500”, this is a challenge to attempt to log all AM BCB stations within 500km of my home.
I have exported all stations within 500km from the ACMA database and after cleaning up this data, I have produced the below data:
From this data I have also created a log sheet which I can use to record each session and what I am able to log. All distances are from my home, I will be able to adjust these based on where each of my sessions take place.
