Listening to the Radio

Very often we find that the newcomers confuse 'amateur radio' or 'ham radio' with 'short wave listening' or 'DXing'. The act of listening to the distant unknown broadcast stations or even ham radio stations is termed as DXing (D stands for 'Distant', X for 'Unknown' and 'ing' for listening).From the early days of International Broadcasting on short wave, listeners have sent in reports on reception to radio stations. In the beginning, when many of the broadcasts were experimental, radio stations relied heavily on reception reports from their listeners. The radio station acknowledges the listener's report with a 'verification card', called a QSL card (meaning acknowledging your report), because from such reception reports, the broadcast operators can get a fair idea about how strong their signals are at the other end of the world. It is the short wave listeners credit to collect QSL cards from distant and hard to get places and the rarer QSL cards may achieve an almost 'philatelic' value in his area. Some more enthusiastic short wave listeners monitor the on-the-air two way conversation of ham radio operators. They also send listening reports to the hams to collect beautiful QSL cards. Listening to the radio services other than broadcast station is considered illegal unless the short wave listener collects a Short Wave Listener's License from the Ministry of Communications and abide by the rules of secrecy. There is no licencing examination to get a "Short wave Listener's Licence".