By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor

This week, Surfin’ goes long without stepping on the gridiron.

I got my feet wet in radio monitoring the medium wave. Then I bought a radio that covered the medium and short waves. I kind or forgot about the medium waves to monitor the exciting international DX of the short waves.

After receiving QSL cards from all the Radio Nederlands, Deutsche Welles and Radio Hanois of the world, next thing you know I have a ham license and I am chasing DX for two years on the Novice allocation of the short waves. As my non-renewable two-year Novice license approached its expiration date, I upgraded to Technician class and chased DX on the very short waves and the very, very short waves.

I never considered the opposite end of the spectrum -- the long waves -- until recently, when I began learning all I could about the ultra-light radios.

In the process, I found that DXing.com’s Longwave DXing web page provides a comprehensive description of the different radio activities that take place (or used to take place) below the AM broadcast radio band.

Meanwhile, the website of the Long Wave Club of America has more details about the various aspects of long wave radio, including long wave reception techniques and stations (experimental or otherwise) currently being heard on the long waves.

Long wave antennas are a lot different than those that I am used to pointing, so I appreciated the effort put into John Dale’s Loop Antennas web page. In addition to his excellent description of the loop antenna, his compilation of “further loop information” is impressive. (Caveat emptor: some of the links in John's list are kaput, but there are still a lot of worthwhile ones that are worth checking out.)

Until next time, have a holly jolly Christmas and keep on surfin’!

Editor’s note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, enjoys the unusual in radio. To contact Stan, send e-mail or add comments to the WA1LOU blog.