I didn't particularly want to write an essay about this, but I would like to take this opportunity to explain a few things about Skywaves and clear up a few points. I am often asked about Skywaves and how it began and, more recently, what is happening to it now, particularly since I stood down as Group Owner.
First, a little history: "Skywaves" was the name of the monthly publication of the "British FM & TV Circle", a hobby radio club I started at the end of 1995. I was a member of other DX radio clubs but none of them catered for the FM (band 2) the TV or MW DXer in any great depth, other than publishing a few loggings on an irregular basis, so after consultation with a couple of other FM & TV DX enthusiasts, namely David Small and Ian Kelly, we got together to plan how the group would operate. Initially, David was co-editor of the satellite TV and TV DX columns while Ian Kelly took on the role of membership secretary and edited the Mailbag section. Skywaves was compiled in Microsoft Word.
Printing was done on my Hewlett Packard computer printer. Each bulletin was collated by creating separate piles for each page and stapling them together - all lovingly hand crafted! Each editor produced their columns using a variety of software, Wordstar comes to mind as one of the earlier DOS programmes, then the editors posted their columns to me on a floppy disc! This may seem very primitive by today's standards but it was all very exciting and 'cutting-edge' technology in 1995!
In its first month, the club had just 18 members but this figure exceeded 100 in just a few months. The Skywaves bulletin was sent to members via the traditional postal system. That's right - sticking stamps on envelopes and popping them in the post box in town! The post could take several days to arrive as we had a two-tier system. Some of the members opted for first class post and others opted for second class. Remember those days?
In 2000, I opened the first Skywaves Yahoo group. It seemed to be a good idea to embrace the latest technology and use the system of posts which appeared on our Yahoo web page almost instantly! Never before had such up-to-the-minute DX news been seen in the DX world.
Membership soon grew into the hundreds as the British FM & TV Circle quickly became established as one of the world's leading FM & TV DX clubs and, right from the beginning, we operated the club on a non profit-making basis. Everything was done to promote the hobby and encourage newcomers. Any surplus funds were kept in the bank account and used to keep the membership rates at a constant level.
Printing soon became a lengthy and more complex task in the early 2000s and we looked around for a more professional level of printing. Mark Hattam took this on and produced the bulltin from London. A new 'pdf' format of the bulletin was created which would then mean that Skywaves could be downloaded and read online - free of charge! Members were given the option to continue to have their printed Skywaves bulletin posted to them or have the new downloadable pdf version. After a year or so most members had opted for the pdf version and only a couple of members continued to opt for the printed bulletin. Shortly after this the printed bulletin ceased.
After some time we found that our regular editors wanted to stand down from editing their column due to various reasons and new editors became more and more difficult to find. Ultimately, each editor had stood down, one by one, but were not replaced. The Yahoo group seemed to be providing all the information club members wanted and there was no need for any kind of bulletin or newsletter with complicated editing methods. Why this happened is unclear but there was some thinking that the pdf made people lazy and we all wanted to do everything online.
I still wonder if we should have stuck to the printed bulletin and not gone down the pdf route, but other DX clubs who had not taken advantage of electronic versions of their bulletins at the time were also struggling with lower contribution rates and a need for editorial replacements. I don't think there is a simple answer which could explain the demise of the Skywaves bulletin, but I tend to lean towards the more popular opiinion and rather cruel assumption that most people are just lazy these days. "If it's not freely available on the internet then it's too much trouble to bother with". I think this is further backed up by the fact that we have twice tried to re-instate the Skywaves bulletin. On both occasions, there was enthusiatic support for this. Skywaves was downloaded many times on both occasions, each bulletin download running into three figures within the first couple of days with subsequent comments being very supportive and encouraging, but the lack of editorial volunteers has meant that we could not sustain the production of the Skywaves this way. There has never been a shortage of interesting content to include in Skywaves, but I think most people simply want to get their DX fix from internet forums these days. It does seem as if the traditional DX club and their printed bulletins are on their way out.
Since the demise of the bulletin I decided to get rid of the name "British FM & TV Circle" and just use the name "Skywaves". I never felt comfortable with the use of the word "British" or even "Britain". Skywaves had a global membership, which was another reason I thought the word ought to go. The word "British" also has less favourable connotations, not least because of our shameful and unnecessary involvment in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries over the years. Oooops, I am getting political!
During 2006, I had begun to think about standing down from Skywaves and passing the whole package over to a new 'controller' ... somebody who would be able to devote more time and develop everything further. My own web skills were not quite up to scratch to achieve the goals I wanted and I was always needing to enlist the help of others . I wanted the site to become more interactive, with online logbooks, useful databases and various sub-sections, each with the abiity to be editited by the members. What I was probably trying to achieve was another online version of the Skywaves bulletin, but using a simple data entry system which everybdy would be able to use. Ultimately, some of the members were reluctant to embrace the existing online logbooks we had already put together, but the Skywaves Yahoo groups continued to flourish.
Skywaves faced several problems over the years. One year, when the domain name came up for renewal, the hosting company locked it and refused to release it. It seemed clear that they wanted to steal the domain for themselves and sell it on for profit. I reported the company to InterNic, who acted on our behalf and ordered them to release the domain.
The website was also hacked into twice! The first time was by a hacker who claimed to be from Iran and the second time, around the end of 2008, by malicious hackers who appeared to be from the far east. The second time was the last straw because, not only were we having problems with hackers, but our hosting company were also becoming unreliable. We lost a lot of data the second time, both on the server and on my own computer which fell victim to the hackers and the website had to be rebuilt from scratch due to a virus which the hackers had dplaced on the site.
We were also experiencing a degree of unpleasantness from certain individuals who seemed determined to cause problems for Skywaves. It was all getting too much and I had to think seriously about the future of Skywaves.
So, during April 2009 I stood down and passed Skywaves over to someone who I thought was going to do more justice to the general running of Skywaves, I did not expect many people to volunteer for this because of the size of the task at hand! In the end, only one person came forward and I seized the opportunity to hand over the reigns, albeit rather hurriedly. It felt like a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Sadly, the person who took on the group did not appear to be interested in Skywaves and selfishly used it for his own web-development purposes. In the interests of Skywaves, control had to be seized rather brutally and the entire FM/TV database was maliciously deleted, resulting in the loss of around 40,000 posts, not to mention articles and loggings, etc.
Today, Skywaves is run by a committee of Moderators, with one person holding the keys, so to speak. My heart is still with the group and, once again, things are growing under the new ownership.
The 800 strong membership of the three Skywaves Yahoo groups are clearly the focal point of the organisation today. I personally doubt that the website will serve any major function in the future, other than to serve as a useful page to promote the Yahoo groups and the hobby in general. I am sure the new owner will be able to breathe new life into the group and keep everything running smoothly.
So, from April 2009, I am just an ordinary member. I have left all the stress behind me and I am enjoying the DX hobby once again, partucuarly various amateur radio aspects.
John
G1VVP
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Monday, 23 March 2009
How I Started DXing
A few lines to explain the series of events which got me into this fascinating yet sometimes frustrating hobby.
My first seeds in the hobby were sown at a very tender age - in my early teens and I have fond memories or our our television going on the blink, shortly followed by a visit from the TV engineer who would come along with his soldering iron and fix it. I would probably be around 10 or 11 years old. While he was making adjustments, I remember seeing him turning the dial and, to my amazement, new TV stations would appear. I became curious as the programmes were different. Where were these TV stations coming from?
This would be the early 70s, when the three TV stations would broadcast a test card for much of the day. The IBA (now ITV) regional stations had separate programmes. The old VHF (band 1) TV system was in use and stations would only broadcast for a few hours each day, from late afternoon until late evening. I remember the short engineering test programmes which would air before regular programming began. There was one about the design of oil tankers.
One day, an aerial contractor had called to install a new aerial as our old one had seen better days. I couldn't wait for him to leave as I was keen to see if I could receive any new stations. Yes I could! Anglia and Tyne Tees. I was fascinated and wondered how many other stations might be on that dial.
It wasn't long before I realised that some days would offer better reception than others. I was now regularly tuning that big rotary knob and discovered duplicates of our nearest regional TV station which were obviously other relays, though I wouldn't have been aware of this fact at the time. I remember one day seeing pictures from Ulster TV - my first encounter with tropospheric propagation. I probably wouldn't have even been able to pronounce that!
Over the months which followed I witnessed further propagation events where I recall seeing interference to our existing TV services. It wasn't long before I realised that the interference was a sign that reception conditions were enhanced and these were the times when distant TV stations stood a better chance of being received. I also began to see foreign television stations, no doubt brought on by sporadic E propagation during the summer months. Curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to know why such distant signals could be received. I was still in my early teens!
For one of my birthdays around this time I received a Binatone transistor radio. I was overjoyed to receive such a fantastic gift and I have fond memories tuning around medium wave to see what distant stations I could receive. The bug was really biting now. I soon discovered that I could receive foreign radio stations on the medium wave band at night yet oddly these stations were not there in the daytime. How could this be?
Frequent power cuts were commonplace at this time due to industrial action in the mining industry. Staff at electricity power stations would strike in sympathy with the miners, resulting in regular interruption to the mains power supply. For a few hours each evening we would have no electricity and therefore could not watch the television. During these candlelit times I would bring out my transistor radio and demonstrate to my parents just how many foreign stations I had discovered across the medium wave dial. I took great pride in demonstrating reception of Radio Luxembourg and the pirate radio stations of the day. I also enjoyed listening to the music from overseas radio stations. My fascination with being able receive distant radio stations continued to grow.
My mother and father were wireless operators in the RAF during the second world war. Move ahead now to the mid seventies when my father was keen to study for his Amateur Radio Licence. Having spent several years as a morse code operator at Bawtry Hall, near Doncaster, he felt that he was almost was half way to becoming a 'radio ham' and wanted to take the Radio Amateur's Examination. He never achieved this as it happened, but I realised that I too wanted to learn more about this in the hope that I might become licenced myself one day.
My father contacted the local amateur radio society and we met several radio enthusiasts, some of whom visited our house and gave us copies of RadCom, Shortwave Magazine and various sample examination papers so we could learn more about the licence requirements. It fascinated me to look through the pages and see advertisements for sophisticated receiving and transmitting equipment, the likes of which I never thought I would be able to afford. "Look at all those knobs and switches!" I felt this was well out of my reach at the time.
One day, I took the Midland General bus with my father to Chesterfield to visit Jack Tweedy's amateur radio shop, underneath the railway arches, where he bought a Trio 9R59D communications receiver. This covered 0.5 to 30MHz. You can imagine the fun I was going to have with this and my father actually used to let me tune the bands, listening to the short-waves and amateur radio transmissions! Yet another exciting new radio world was unfolding before my eyes.
The next stage in my DXing career was to discover DX clubs. These would be advertised in monthly radio magazines such as Practical Wireless. I found the World DX Club in the late seventies, closely followed by the Medium Wave Circle. I joined both as soon as I had found them and became a regular contributor to the magazines of both clubs. Now I was beginning to see exactly where I was going with this wonderful hobby.
Getting involved in TV DX was the next stage. This would have been right at the end of the seventies, at a time when the MUF (Maximum Usable Frequency) was very high and daily reception of Zimbabwe was possible in the afternoons via F2 propagation.
This story will close along similar lines to how it began - with a TV engineer calling to the house one day in the early eighties, again to fix another problem on our television. I remember this very well as I had been enjoying sporadic E reception on band 1 to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, on my modified dual standard Baird TV upstairs in my bedroom only minutes before his visit. As the the TV engineer was fumbling around in the back of the TV I took great pride in telling him how I had just been watching TV pictures from Yugoslavia using only a crossed dipole which was leaning against my bedroom wall. Then came his unexpected response, which took me by surprise: "That's not possible. We have enough trouble receiving ATV in these parts, let alone Yugoslavia". TV Engineers! How little some of them know!
John, G1VVP
My first seeds in the hobby were sown at a very tender age - in my early teens and I have fond memories or our our television going on the blink, shortly followed by a visit from the TV engineer who would come along with his soldering iron and fix it. I would probably be around 10 or 11 years old. While he was making adjustments, I remember seeing him turning the dial and, to my amazement, new TV stations would appear. I became curious as the programmes were different. Where were these TV stations coming from?
This would be the early 70s, when the three TV stations would broadcast a test card for much of the day. The IBA (now ITV) regional stations had separate programmes. The old VHF (band 1) TV system was in use and stations would only broadcast for a few hours each day, from late afternoon until late evening. I remember the short engineering test programmes which would air before regular programming began. There was one about the design of oil tankers.
One day, an aerial contractor had called to install a new aerial as our old one had seen better days. I couldn't wait for him to leave as I was keen to see if I could receive any new stations. Yes I could! Anglia and Tyne Tees. I was fascinated and wondered how many other stations might be on that dial.
It wasn't long before I realised that some days would offer better reception than others. I was now regularly tuning that big rotary knob and discovered duplicates of our nearest regional TV station which were obviously other relays, though I wouldn't have been aware of this fact at the time. I remember one day seeing pictures from Ulster TV - my first encounter with tropospheric propagation. I probably wouldn't have even been able to pronounce that!
Over the months which followed I witnessed further propagation events where I recall seeing interference to our existing TV services. It wasn't long before I realised that the interference was a sign that reception conditions were enhanced and these were the times when distant TV stations stood a better chance of being received. I also began to see foreign television stations, no doubt brought on by sporadic E propagation during the summer months. Curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to know why such distant signals could be received. I was still in my early teens!
For one of my birthdays around this time I received a Binatone transistor radio. I was overjoyed to receive such a fantastic gift and I have fond memories tuning around medium wave to see what distant stations I could receive. The bug was really biting now. I soon discovered that I could receive foreign radio stations on the medium wave band at night yet oddly these stations were not there in the daytime. How could this be?
Frequent power cuts were commonplace at this time due to industrial action in the mining industry. Staff at electricity power stations would strike in sympathy with the miners, resulting in regular interruption to the mains power supply. For a few hours each evening we would have no electricity and therefore could not watch the television. During these candlelit times I would bring out my transistor radio and demonstrate to my parents just how many foreign stations I had discovered across the medium wave dial. I took great pride in demonstrating reception of Radio Luxembourg and the pirate radio stations of the day. I also enjoyed listening to the music from overseas radio stations. My fascination with being able receive distant radio stations continued to grow.
My mother and father were wireless operators in the RAF during the second world war. Move ahead now to the mid seventies when my father was keen to study for his Amateur Radio Licence. Having spent several years as a morse code operator at Bawtry Hall, near Doncaster, he felt that he was almost was half way to becoming a 'radio ham' and wanted to take the Radio Amateur's Examination. He never achieved this as it happened, but I realised that I too wanted to learn more about this in the hope that I might become licenced myself one day.
My father contacted the local amateur radio society and we met several radio enthusiasts, some of whom visited our house and gave us copies of RadCom, Shortwave Magazine and various sample examination papers so we could learn more about the licence requirements. It fascinated me to look through the pages and see advertisements for sophisticated receiving and transmitting equipment, the likes of which I never thought I would be able to afford. "Look at all those knobs and switches!" I felt this was well out of my reach at the time.
One day, I took the Midland General bus with my father to Chesterfield to visit Jack Tweedy's amateur radio shop, underneath the railway arches, where he bought a Trio 9R59D communications receiver. This covered 0.5 to 30MHz. You can imagine the fun I was going to have with this and my father actually used to let me tune the bands, listening to the short-waves and amateur radio transmissions! Yet another exciting new radio world was unfolding before my eyes.
The next stage in my DXing career was to discover DX clubs. These would be advertised in monthly radio magazines such as Practical Wireless. I found the World DX Club in the late seventies, closely followed by the Medium Wave Circle. I joined both as soon as I had found them and became a regular contributor to the magazines of both clubs. Now I was beginning to see exactly where I was going with this wonderful hobby.
Getting involved in TV DX was the next stage. This would have been right at the end of the seventies, at a time when the MUF (Maximum Usable Frequency) was very high and daily reception of Zimbabwe was possible in the afternoons via F2 propagation.
This story will close along similar lines to how it began - with a TV engineer calling to the house one day in the early eighties, again to fix another problem on our television. I remember this very well as I had been enjoying sporadic E reception on band 1 to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, on my modified dual standard Baird TV upstairs in my bedroom only minutes before his visit. As the the TV engineer was fumbling around in the back of the TV I took great pride in telling him how I had just been watching TV pictures from Yugoslavia using only a crossed dipole which was leaning against my bedroom wall. Then came his unexpected response, which took me by surprise: "That's not possible. We have enough trouble receiving ATV in these parts, let alone Yugoslavia". TV Engineers! How little some of them know!
John, G1VVP
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