EA3BHK - English

DX:

DX is a part of the 'way of life' of an amateur radio station, and may be with the most fans.

DX'er must contact with all countries in the whole world and to receive the target (named 'QSL') from the another station as a confirmation of the contact (named 'QSO').

For an amateur radio, the wolrd is divided in countries that is no necessary to match with the political countries. A 'amateur radio country' can be a part or a zone inside another one or continent (as Ceuta y Melilla, Guantanmo Bay) or an island (like the Balearic, Canary, Falkland). The DXCC DESK is the organ wich decides what is and what is not a country and has the famous DXCC Country List.

I have set up a web with a huge DX call information: http://dxinfo.ea3bhk.com .

At the present time, there are 337 entities and the station wich has the QSL from at least diferents 100 entities, can submited for the DXCC or the CQ awards, may be the must importants.

One of the must useful tool for DX-hunting is the Cluster net.

As you supose, there are unhabited countries (islands), or with a null or very low activity, in this situation a group of men/women goes there during few days (usually 7 or 15 days) in order to activated the entity, that's a expedition.

The Cluster:

	ED3ZAF-5 [DX-Cluster]
	(former EA3BHK-5)

A Cluster net, is a huge net of computers from all over the world interlinked generating the figure of the grape and each computer is named Node.

The radioamateur , thanks to his computer one modem-radio and one transceiver (using the AX25 protocol), links to the must nearest Node while is another transceiver is on, and listen the bands and making the contacts, when suddenly founds a DX station.

One he has maded the contact, using the software wich controls his log, sends the information of the call and frequency named DX spot to his node, in real time, the node sends this information to all connected local users and nodes in the net (wich re-sends the information to his respectives local users and nodes). In this way and within 5 minutes, the spot is shared to all Europe, watching that in this frequency can be found the DX station 'X'.

The Log software, alerts the user if he needs this DX.

The spanish clusters, has "-5" following the amateur radio call wich control the system (SySop).

Here you have a typical reception cluster window from a log program for a better understanding:

And if you wish to experiment, click here.

ED3ZAF-5 [DX-Cluster]

(former EA3BHK-5)