British DX Club - broadcasts in English

What does DX mean?

Welcome to the DXer's Toolbox, I have been receiving a steady stream of e-mail's asking one question in particularly - What exactly does "DX" mean?

"DX"

"DX" is an old radio term used by radio enthusiasts, it stands for the long-distance reception of radio signals, DX being a short-form way of saying "distance-extreme."

In the early years of telecommunications, sending messages by wire or radio was done with the use of a code. Speech transmission had not yet been invented. A well-known example of such a code, still used by ships at sea and Amateur Radio enthusiasts today among others, is the so-called "Morse Code." Morse is made up of a series of dots and dashes which are used to represent the letters of the alphabet and is the simplest form of radio communication.

The speed at which a whole sentence of text could be sent was considerably slower than normal voice communication. By reducing some of the common words to short "code words," the message could be sent more quickly. DX is one such abbreviation.

So, what is a "DXer"? Most people listen to radio at some time of the day - it's a common feature of modern life. DXers go beyond the local and national radio stations that most of us can expect to hear and search between them to pick up signals from further afield. For the average radio listener, interested in one or two favourite stations, the noises that you tune through on your way through the radio wavebands are just "interference." The DXer, on the other hand, loves to trawl through those "noises" in the hope of picking up something new, something different, something that they have not heard before.

The Wonderful World Of Radio.

Radio signals are transmitted on what are known as "frequencies." Frequencies are the "house numbers" of the radio stations, and groups of these frequencies, known as "Wavebands," are the streets that these frequencies live on. To avoid confusion, and make sensible use of the differenct transmission characteristics of the various frequencies available for radio, these wavebands tend to be used for one particular purpose, i.e. a waveband for television signals, a waveband for police radio, and so on.

DXers can be interested in many different types of radio signals, though we are concerning ourselves mainly with what is known as "Broadcast Band" listening on this web site.

Broadcast Wavebands.

The different broadcast wavebands all have differing reception characteristics, and the challenge of long-distance radio reception differs according to which waveband is being tuned. Receiving a station from New Zealand on short-wave in the British Isles is probably as long-distance as "DX" gets, but the reception of a local FM radio station a couple of hundred miles away from the transmitter - relatively local in distance - would equally be regarded as "DX."

The wavebands that broadcast DXers can tune are as follows - from the bottom to the top:

Longwave - 153kHz to 279kHz

Medium-wave* - 520kHz to 1710kHz

Shortwave - Split into 12 bands between 2.3MHz and 26.1MHz

VHF/FM - Between 67MHz and 108MHz

In different regions across the world (* Medium-wave is known as the "Broadcast Band" or "AM" in North America)

What Do You Need?

While it is true that the better the equipment used the better the chances of DX reception, amazing results can often be obtained by DX'ers with the simplest of equipment. Many DXers began with just a portable radio. Short-wave offers the best chance for the beginner to try the hobby out and to pick up long-distance radio stations with very little effort.

What do people see in it? Some enjoy long-distance radio reception for the chance to travel - in a radio sense of course - and to get a taste of different
cultures and music, or perhaps to hear news from another viewpoint. Others like the challenge of hearing something new, and collect confirmation cards ("QSL" cards) from the radio stations, just as some collect stamps. DXers often take up the hobby thinking that they are the only one with this interest, and the opportunities to share the excitement of a radio catch with someone are denied them - until, that is, they discover that they are not alone!