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Author Topic: Social Trends in DXing?  (Read 768 times)

KJ4Z

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Social Trends in DXing?
« on: December 25, 2022, 10:28:20 PM »

When I returned to the hobby in 2014 after a long absence, I found that a really rich ecosystem of blogs, forums, email reflectors etc had sprung up in my absence.  I thought they were all really enjoyable and they considerably added to my enjoyment of this niche hobby of ours.

Spring forward to now and most of the DXing blogs I loved are long silent, the reflectors are relatively quiet, and even the forums (such as venerable eham) are much more muted and sparsely-posted than they used to be.  When was the last time we had a thread on here run on to 20 or 30 pages?  I can remember it used to happen every now and then.  (Pepperidge Farm remembers too.)

My local DX club hasn't met in person in almost three years.  I've never been to a meeting and now I'm starting to wonder if I ever will.  So my question to you is, is your local DX club scene thriving and healthy?  Are there any places online you still like to hang out with fellow DXers (and if so, please share)?  Do you even think a social aspect to DXing is important, or is it a solitary undertaking for you?  Slightly worried minds want to know.
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WO7R

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #1 on: December 25, 2022, 11:26:41 PM »

This probably belongs in the "clubs" section.

Our DX Club did what everyone else did and went on Zoom during The Great Hiatus.

We have offered a hybrid option for nearly a year now.  Physical attendance is sparse.

The problem isn't that we are all in love with masks and remote operations.

The issues are as varied as the members, but as I depart the club's board, what I mostly hear from members is:

1.  For those outside the Phoenix Metro, the cost of gas is a consideration.
2.  Many have serious medical problems -- their own or someone that lives with them.  We do skew older in our club.  Even the ordinary flu, never mind COVID, is a risk for such members -- one they no longer have to take.  (Take your COVID politics somewhere else please -- these are real people making personal decisions about risk -- I am not about to dispute them, especially as in not a few cases, I know why they conclude as they do).

Between at least those two factors, and maybe sheer convenience, the club now consists of members who mostly attend via Zoom.  The number of people that physically show up is going down over time, if slowly.

It is something the board would like to reverse even though we have always had excellent presentations on DXing and now have access (via Zoom) to presenters from all over the US that we never had before.

There is value in showing up, asking your betters some informal questions about why you can't work X or why your performance on 17 meter sucks.  That is the part that is being lost.  The rest is actually just fine.

I don't know how this one is going to turn out.

Meanwhile, if you are alone, try and find out what happened to the DX club in your state.  Odds are good that there is something available either live or on Zoom.  I've already discussed the latter and what I see as its limitations, but it beats nothing all hollow.
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K3TN

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2022, 03:43:32 AM »

Seems like a lot of the blogging energy has migrated to Facebook, Twitter,  YouTube and podcasts in lots of areas, ham radio and DXing included. Richer media choices, more use of those things for family purposes by hams, even the older than average ham population!

73 John K3TN
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John K3TN

NI0C

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2022, 05:20:46 AM »

Quote
My local DX club hasn't met in person in almost three years.  I've never been to a meeting and now I'm starting to wonder if I ever will.  So my question to you is, is your local DX club scene thriving and healthy?  Are there any places online you still like to hang out with fellow DXers (and if so, please share)?  Do you even think a social aspect to DXing is important, or is it a solitary undertaking for you?  Slightly worried minds want to know.
I've been VP of our local DX club for several years, with the main responsibility for drumming up presentations for our meetings. Our meeting place is at a local hospital.  Obviously we were affected by Covid big time. When we were forced to use Zoom, our attendance instantly was cut in half-- from 25-30 that used to attend in-person to 12-15 who would bother to use Zoom. Now we're back to in person meetings, but our attendance hasn't yet recovered to pre-Covid levels. Health concerns by an aging membership is a big part of it.

On the bright side, three of our younger members stepped up to take on positions as President, Secretary and Treasurer. We also continue to have members who help each other with antenna installations. I'm optimistic that we will thrive.
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N2SR

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #4 on: December 26, 2022, 08:31:37 AM »

Our contest club stopped in person meetings due to the Chinese flu.  I forget when we resumed them, but we now have hybrid meetings.  It works for us because of how widespread we are as a club, many in the club are older and prefer not to drive at night - for a long distance. 

We also have presentations via Zoom from various people - from all over the country and world. 

Attendance is pretty steady, and depending on the meeting and presentation, increases.  One of our members controls the Zoom part of the meeting, and records the presentations. 

It works for us. 
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KE4KY

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2022, 08:21:58 AM »

Blogs on Dxing:
Found very few that I wanted to follow for very long. The better ones had a good mix of news, DX history, articles of recent activations (even the minor ones), and more technical articles on antennas, Internet DX-ing aids, etc...

Internet Forums:
Ok to scan, kind of like the funny pages in newspapers of yesteryear, but unfortunately pretty much taken over by a small cadre of folks that don't just respond to posts, they editorialize and evangelize their personal thoughts as though they have all the answers. Every once in a while, a small nugget of useful information may pop out, but not very often.

DX Clubs:
Okay for information and networking for the novices and those just starting out, but overall they are dying as well. The best clubs/groups are usually the tightknit groups that are heavy on the social aspect(s) of friendship, helping each other with antennas, meeting for dinners, etc... In my experience, the best clubs/groups are usually very informal and attempt to escape the trappings of the more formal (Robert's Rules of Order types) club paradigm.

The club experience of attending to hear:
-old minutes
-treasurers reports
-old business
-new business
-and then having the "politics" of the large club atmosphere are not what most want out of clubs any longer
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Glenn KE4KY - Amateur Radio since 1975; Definitely, one of the deserving...

KM4SII

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2022, 12:17:20 PM »

I used to be a good deal more active on forums than I am now. I have stopped checking the QRZ forums and now generally only keep an eye on the eHam DXing subforum (but rarely check the other subforums) and radioreference (usually for my other radio-related interest which is police scanners). I am also a member of a few email reflectors and Facebook groups although I do not post in them terribly often. As for other amateur radio blog-type websites, the only one that comes to mind that I check semi-often is DX-World which provides useful information regarding upcoming and ongoing DXpeditions.

When it comes to clubs, I used to be quite active in my local club -- the Forsyth Amateur Radio Club. They are a great group of people who have been instrumental in getting me to where I am in the hobby today, and there are a number of folks there who are into DXing and contesting. I have not been to a meeting in quite some time, however, with COVID throwing a wrench in things for a while and then me being out of the state at college most of the year. I am also a member of PVRC but have not been able to attend an in-person meeting for the aforementioned reasons and the fact that I am on the outer edge of the club circle. At Auburn University, I am involved with their amateur radio club, and we host a few meetings and activities each semester.

One thing I would add is that my station is on the RHR Youth Network, meaning that any youth operators with a US callsign can operate my station free of charge when I am not using it. Some may not have a station of their own, so this allows them to still be able to get on the air. All of us keep in contact on a Discord server which has grown rapidly over the past few years. It is a great community and quite a few of us have become good friends and meet up fairly often at ham fests and operating events (field day, contests, POTA, etc). It is fun to be able to chat in an informal setting about all manner of things ranging from working DXpeditions to building antennas to just goofing off  ;D That server is probably where I get most of the social aspect of the hobby at this point.

73
Mason - KM4SII
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K1JX

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2022, 12:42:16 PM »

"Why would I want to join a club that would have me as a member?" - the late Julius Marx, who (not joking) was reputed to have been an active ham at one time.  High speed 40M CW was his preference.
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KJ4Z

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2022, 12:59:06 PM »

All of us keep in contact on a Discord server which has grown rapidly over the past few years.

Discord is one of those things (like TikTok) that remind me I'm becoming that Old Guy.  :)

Thanks for the responses.  I agree with KE4KY that the informal gathering sounds more appealing than a formal club, but it raises the question: how did those ops meet in the first place, if not through their local club?  Friendships gotta start somewhere.

Happy New Year, everyone.
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K7KB

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #9 on: December 29, 2022, 01:10:29 PM »

When I returned to the hobby in 2014 after a long absence, I found that a really rich ecosystem of blogs, forums, email reflectors etc had sprung up in my absence.  I thought they were all really enjoyable and they considerably added to my enjoyment of this niche hobby of ours.

Spring forward to now and most of the DXing blogs I loved are long silent, the reflectors are relatively quiet, and even the forums (such as venerable eham) are much more muted and sparsely-posted than they used to be.  When was the last time we had a thread on here run on to 20 or 30 pages?  I can remember it used to happen every now and then.  (Pepperidge Farm remembers too.)

My local DX club hasn't met in person in almost three years.  I've never been to a meeting and now I'm starting to wonder if I ever will.  So my question to you is, is your local DX club scene thriving and healthy?  Are there any places online you still like to hang out with fellow DXers (and if so, please share)?  Do you even think a social aspect to DXing is important, or is it a solitary undertaking for you?  Slightly worried minds want to know.

I think the pandemic had a lot to do with our social changes and the DX clubs had to switch to Zoom for our monthly meetings. But we had some very interesting and well known people in the DX world give some very interesting presentations via Zoom. So actually our membership went up. Not only because of the presentations, but because more people from outside our immediate area could participate. Our club covers most of Eastern Washington and North Idaho, so we had a lot of people join up around the area.

We are trying to get back to meeting in person again but we have decided we are going to do a mix of in-person and Zoom meetings. And even for our in-person meeting we are hoping to integrate Zoom live streaming. Clubs need to learn to adapt, and hopefully we have done so.

John K7KB
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KE4KY

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #10 on: December 30, 2022, 07:29:50 AM »

As far as blogs went, KY6R had one of the more interesting ones for a while, his deep dive into the DXCC entity history(s) was excellent work and some great reading.

As far as meeting people that have like or similar interests, luckily we have several traditional clubs in the area that it is easy enough to cultivate a few that are interested. Surprisingly, the club's Facebook pages have been a good way to meet folks that have their curiosity piqued. Additionally, our local hamfest is a venue where a group of us pay for booth space and hold court just so we have a place to sit, socialize, and solve the problems of the world.

A DX-ing and contest club is the best of both worlds married together to have plenty to talk about, forge friendships, solve technical issues for folks, and keep the conversation always moving forward. DX-ing and contesting have many parallel paths, some may just take one side more serious than the other.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2022, 07:32:05 AM by KE4KY »
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Glenn KE4KY - Amateur Radio since 1975; Definitely, one of the deserving...

KJ4Z

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #11 on: December 30, 2022, 10:42:27 AM »

As far as blogs went, KY6R had one of the more interesting ones for a while, his deep dive into the DXCC entity history(s) was excellent work and some great reading.

Yes, KY6R's blog was one of my favorites.  Funnily enough, we wound up meeting through it and became good friends in person.  A lot of my kit is hand-me-downs from KY6R when he closed up shop.  I regret that he deleted all his blogs, but he told me they were always intended to be ephemeral.
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KE4KY

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Re: Social Trends in DXing?
« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2022, 04:10:32 PM »

I regret that he deleted all his blogs, but he told me they were always intended to be ephemeral.

..so much work went into his product, that really is a shame. I was actually going to look for it again on the web.
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Glenn KE4KY - Amateur Radio since 1975; Definitely, one of the deserving...
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