Customer Reviews

DX 101X: HF + Six Meters DXing Reference Guide: A Comprehensive Guide To The World Of Hf Dxing. Now With Six Meters!

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I have mixed feelings about this book, it is well written, it has loads of useful advice but most of the advice is the kind of info that a new ham will pick up on his own in his first year of working DX.
I have worked many many countries from Asia, Africa, VK's, ZL's Europeans, NA, SA and both Poles, so when I looked at the huge list of Dx Advice I found so many of items to be things I learned during my first year of listening to the Top Guns and things I learned on my own as a newbie trying out things by either succeeding or failing. So you can imagine that at many points, this book bought a smile to my face as I thought to myself, been there done that or oh yeah that one was a trap I fell into, in that way this book was more than worth the price of admission.

What I am torn between is my gut feeling that a good Ham listens and learns DXing from the experts on the air and the thought of quickly learning stuff from this book! It makes me think of the old adage that "The Journey is more important than arriving" I must admit there are more than just a few new things I picked up in this book that I found to be slick and there were a few things that I did not realize was bad juju in the Ham world, so in that regard the DX101 is a good book to have, but just don't treat Ham radio like learning a new computer language, it's an interactive verbal dance between people and if your new to Ham Radio you will not appreciate how big that statement is, but keep in mind your not just Talking to your own countrymen but people of different cultures that often times see things that you might think as normal as down right distasteful, luckily most Hams are gentlemen so they will just let it pass; but just don't expect them to line up to talk to you in the future.

Doing good Dxing requires a skill set that cannot just be read in a book, but this book will help you to go down a proper path and and offers tons of guidance on what to avoid and what might help, but don't think that after reading this you will just be reaping a huge amount of contacts because during the Journey you will need to learn a lot more about propagation from raw experience than just reading, you will learn more about equipment from using an assortment and mainly you will learn to listen listen and listen more. I have found Ham Radio to be a great personal tool in my everyday life, in this day of so much computer generated chatter many people have forgotten the simple verbal skills that are needed to interact with people, Ham Radio keeps that skill sharp! Also I have developed the ability to hear dialog when other people go "Huh what did he say". As time passes almost all ham operators become skilled at hearing things other people cant make out.

If your a new Ham go out and buy this book without hesitation, it will save you many hours of frustration and it will make you sound more professional to other Hams. If your an old Ham op this book may provide you with a few insights that you never knew.

I consider one of the best book on Dxing. Full of little secret to improve the ability to catch new country. IZ2AMW.

Although I've only begun reading this comprehensive guide to DXing, this is the one source for those of us just beginning that aspect of ham radio communication. It promises to be more valuable as the 10-meter band begins to open up.