Dxing - DXing Equipment

DXing Equipment

Radio equipment used in DXing ranges from inexpensive portable receivers to deluxe equipment costing thousands of dollars. Using just a simple AM radio, one can easily hear signals from the most powerful stations propagating hundreds of miles at night. Even an inexpensive shortwave radio can receive signals emanating from several countries during any time of day.

Serious hobbyists use more elaborate receivers designed specifically for pulling in distant signals, and often build their own antennas specifically designed for a specific frequency band. There is much discussion and debate in the hobby about the relative merits of lesser priced shortwave receivers vs. their multi-thousand dollar "big brother" radios. In general, a good desktop or "PC Radio" will be able to "hear" just about what a very expensive high-performance receiver can receive. The difference between the two types comes into play during difficult band or reception conditions. The expensive receiver will have more filtering options and usually better adjacent channel interference blocking, sometimes resulting in the difference of being able to receive or not receive a signal under poor conditions. Reception of international broadcasting seldom shows a noticeable difference between the two radios. An example of a high-end shortwave receiver currently being manufactured is the Ten-Tec RX-340.

Car radios are also used for DXing the broadcast bands.

Another recent trend is for the hobbyist to employ multiple radios and antennas connected to a personal computer. Through advanced radio control software, the radios can be automatically ganged together, so that tuning one radio can tune all the others in the group. This DXing technique is sometimes referred to as diversity reception and facilitates easy "A to B" comparison of different antennas and receivers for a given signal. For more details on "PC Radios" or computer controlled shortwave receivers see the discussion in Shortwave listening.

Having a minimum of two Dipole antenna at right angles to each other, for example, one running North-South and one running East-West can produce dramatically different reception patterns. These simple antennas can be made for a few dollars worth of wire and a couple of insulators.