Caffeinated Politics

I came across the following diary entries from my husband’s 2nd great-grandfather, George Rowe, who was born just before the Civil War started in 1860. That means he was about 62 years old at the time he was DXing. Say what?

George was a sheep farmer and retired schoolteacher who would sit by the amber glow of his radio, which was newly acquired in 1922.  He would tune the dial to hear the stations far removed from his home in Charleston, Maine, in the heart of Penobscot County.  Trying to pick up radio stations far away started with folks such as Rowe while listening to the AM or shortwave bands.  Back in the early days of radio (1920’s), radio stations were not sure how far their signals reached and so asked listeners to send in reports of when and where the station’s signal was heard.  The station would then send out postcards to the listeners.  It was from this beginning that DXing was born. 

While seated at his radio, George would hear broadcasts from the First Universalist Church in Bangor, Maine, or the University of Maine at Orono.  But I can imagine his face when he was able to tune into Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, and Maryland.  But then imagine his face when his radio picked up London, England!  I truly would have enjoyed being with him at that moment.  Talk about two kids in the same room!  His journals, like the pages printed in this column, demonstrate the pleasure that he found while searching for radio stations.

I write this post because the genealogy research that goes on in our home all the time uncovered the DX’er in James’ family. Rowe would have had parents who heard about the Civil War from newspapers and chats at the local grocery store in Maine.  He would grow up to hear about news events as an older man from across the ocean on the radio. 

I started DXing as a young boy in my bedroom in Hancock, Wisconsin.  I am not sure how it started, other than the radio was a prime source of news and entertainment in our rural home. I found it fun and something I could do by myself. I could DX for hours and never get bored.  Often at night, I would DX in the darkness of my bedroom when everyone else was asleep.  It was easier to DX at night when signals would bounce great distances across the sky. I, too, kept a journal of my DXing.  I told my friends about it, but they thought it strange and wanted no part of being a DXer.  In fact, they were not sure that what I told them about my DXing was even true.

As a younger man, I turned my fascination with radio waves into a broadcasting job.  I often sat at WDOR radio in the heart of Door County, wondering who was hearing my voice and where they were located.  At times, the station would receive a card or letter from someone who heard the signal in places that seemed impossible.  Those signals being heard then were also due to a ‘skip’ in the atmosphere.  But nothing could compare to the nights when Rowe would listen in Maine and hear the radio waves dance their way to his 1922 radio.  Those were indeed memorable times.