Topband: Straws in the wind, continued or, "Where's the DX?"

[Brad Anbro]

Hello fellow DX'ers,

I have been following the discussion of FT8 and how it relates to the future of ham radio in general, and
in DX'ing, in particular. I am a 66 year-old retired industrial electrician, who has been licensed sine 1981,
having first received my Novice Class ticket, then upgrading to Advanced and then finally, to Extra Class
in 1983. Needless to say, these were licenses in which it was REQUIRED to pass Morse Code tests.

Up until recently, I operated on all HF bands, from 10 meters through 160 meters and my operating mode
is about 99% CW. The local ham radio club put on a talk about FT8 a couple of months ago. I sat there and
politely listened to what was being said. I can state for a fact that I will NEVER engage in the FT8 mode of
communication or in any of the other "digital" modes.

To my way of thinking, ham radio is about PEOPLE communicating with other people; not about computers
(machines) communicating with other computers (machines). The purpose of this post is not to condemn
any person who operates using these digital modes. If that is what he or she wants to do, great! But to
compare operating with FT8 with CW is, in my opinion, like comparing apples and oranges. In the FT8 talk
at the local ham radio club meeting, it was stated that FT8 communications will "get through" under
conditions that would not allow even CW communications to get through.

I very much enjoy DX'ing on 80 and 160 meters because of the challenge of dealing with the weak signals
and the QRN levels with which one has to contend. Here again, to my way of thinking, if one runs up a
big country total, say on 160 meters, with FT8 and attempts to "compare" that with another DX'ing on
160 meters using CW or SSB, he or she is making an unfair comparison (apples & oranges).

I recently moved from northern Illinois to eastern Tennessee, to enjoy my retirement years and am in
the process of putting up a guyed Rohn 55G tower and will install a Cushcraft XM240 (small 2-element
40 meter monoband yagi) and a Hygain 204BA (4-element 20 meter monoband yagi) on the tower. That
way, I will have a good antenna for a "daytime" band (20 meters) and one for a "night-time" band (40
meters). I am also going to put up antennas so that I can get back to working DX on 80 & 160 meters.

Back in Illinois, I operated on all three "WARC bands" and managed to run up a country total of over
300 DXCC entities on all three WARC bands. I had a home-built copy of a KLM 30M-3 (KLM's 3-element
30 meter monoband yagi) installed at the 87' level of one of my towers and managed to work 327 DXCC
entities on that band, all with using no more than 100 watts of transmitter power.

Before moving to Tennessee in May of 2017, I noticed that the DX on 30 meters was getting less and
less. This winter, I quickly put up a delta loop for 30 meters, in hopes of working Kosovo on that band,
as a new DXCC entity. After putting the antenna up, I found that there was very little DX to work, using
the CW mode of communication. I was not surprised by this in the least.

I am very afraid that after I go through with all of the work and expense of again establishing an HF
station here in Tennessee that the other bands will go the route of 30 meters - that there will be less
and less CW-DX on those bands, because most of the operation will have shifted to FT8. I can already
see that happening right now. Twenty meters seems to "close up" here around 1430Z - 1500Z but it
really doesn't "close up" - I've heard MANY loud European stations in the afternoon, calling a DX
station that was on a DX-pedition, the European stations trying to "work a new one." I have also
tuned around on 40 and 80 meters at night and have experienced a lack of DX stations on CW,
especially on 80 meters.

I am going to put up my HF antennas and will continue to work DX, using CW as my preferred means
of communicating. I will be content to work the "garden variety DX" and will try my best to act as a
"good-will ambassador" for my country, the United States...