Complete DXing.

My goal each time I sit down in front of the radio is to do something new -- work a new DXCC country, or a new state, or a country or state on a new band or in a new mode. This helps overcome the doldrums of watching the same stations scroll by in SuperBrowser or listening to the same people having the same old QSO on 20m phone.

Perusing my logbook over the past few weeks since going QRV, I find that I have largely succeed in this endeavor; every day of operation has yielded something new, and I've watched my totals climb (37 countries and 39 states worked in 22 days of operation). All this, mind you, with a low-power rig, a mobile antenna, a questionable ground system, a high-noise level QTH, and minimal effort.

Looking further back through my logbook I found that it took me just over a year to work 37 countries at a time when the propagation conditions were far better, I had a better antenna situation, I operated a lot more, and (for a short time) ran a JRL-2000F at 600W. What's changed? Well.... me, that's what, and I can thank a single book for fostering this change.

I attribute my recent results, meager though they may be, to The Complete DX'er by W9KNI, a book which I've read and re-read several times during 10-plus year period of little or no activity and one which has become a mainstay of my toilet-reading regiment (and I say this with utmost respect, as my most productive reading occurs in the Porcelain Library). If nothing else, the book repeatedly pounded into my skull the most important skills a DX chaser can master -- listen, learn the behavior of the DX station, understand when to give up on a hopeless pileup situation, then listen some more. These simple, common-sense principles are so ingrained in my operating style that I don't even think about them anymore.

While working PSK31 on 20m the other day, I encountered a DX station in QSO with a stateside ham. I waited for the QSO to end then dropped in a call to the DX station but got no response. Switching back to SuperBrowser, I saw him just north of his last operating frequency already in QSO with another US station, so I QSY'd and waited. In the past I would have called him again as soon as this QSO was complete. But alas, the lessons of W9KNI reigned in my old impulses. Instead of calling again, I watched the waterfall to see what he was going to do next. Sure enough, he moved up-band slightly and a few minutes later answered a CQ from another station. As this QSO was in progress I scouted out the next clear piece of real estate on the waterfall. Then, as the DX was just about through signing clear, I started sending a long call to the DX station in hope that he would once again QSY up the band to look for a new station to work and see me calling. He responded to me after one call. As we QSO'd, I noted (with smug satisfaction) that others were still calling him on his last frequency while I was putting a new one in the log.

While I can't say for sure that I wouldn't have eventually learned how to do this on my own, the fact is I learned it from W9KNI by reading his book, and I did so a long time before I would likely have figured it out for myself. Gone forever are my days of shouting into a storm of big guns or trying to work stations that probably have a slim chance if any of hearing my near-QRP signal. My ratio of stations called to stations worked is far better, not because my equipment is better but because I simply operate smarter.

My copy of The Complete DX'er is the First Edition (1983), old enough that it still refers to external VFOs and the Soviet Union (remember "Box 88?"), while making no mention of packet clusters, DSP radios or digital modes; relics of the past such as outboard audio filters and a DX-Edge are among the recommended accessories a DX'er needs, items which are presently gathering dust on the shelf as they've been replaced with my K3's variable DSP filtering and computer-based grey line maps. Most of the book's narrative revolves around CW operation, yet the basic concepts of successful DX chasing still apply today to the modern digital modes I'm so hooked on. The Complete DX'er has just been updated to a Third Edition which I imagine will cover all of the modern radios and tools introduced since the early 1980's that are now commonplace in the modern ham shack. I intend to pick up a new copy one of these days.

Perhaps now more than ever, this book should be required reading for all amateurs who operate on the HF bands -- simple observation of the way some people behave in a pileup makes it all too clear that they've never read this book nor otherwise learned through experience the principles it espouses.

Postscript: It should be noted that W9KNI is now, unsurprisingly, a practitioner of the QRP arts (link to PDF file).