My Re-Retirement From DXingPOSTED MAY 21, 2026

A long tug-of-war between my DXing hobby and my writing hobby has been turning sharply against DXing the last few years, and now I find myself at a tipping point. I've decided to retire from DXing again.

The first retirement came with TV's digital transition but only stuck for four years. I added FM DXing in 2013 so I could continue hunting analog signals, keeping e-skip afloat, but the FCC was aggressively plugging every open FM channel I had (even in a mid-size market like Fort Myers) and the resulting surge of locals made the band needlessly challenging to work with. Things slowed until I moved to Orlando in 2019 and wanted to quickly establish a history of DXing here before the first DTV repack.

I have some decent North Carolina catches from years ago, and last season netted me some of that good Texas tropo from across the Gulf, on FM anyway. Now I feel like I've checked the realistic boxes in the Orlando logbook. A lot more time and effort might get me TV catches from Texas (which I never pulled off in Fort Myers). Tamaulipas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, etc might come in eventually too. But life is short and there's only so much time for any given thing. I'd rather use the time on my writing.

So what's going away? I really like the DXing spot I have in Lake May, and I still expect to go there occasionally. Catches may be too infrequent to merit any new YouTube compilations. The DXing gear is still useful for "local" bandscan videos, which my channel largely grew around, and I'm still interested in making those throughout Florida. I think I'll bring back the radio bandscans too, limiting the FM scans to more notable stations. They'll be a nice alternative when I need breaks from my writing.

I know my format on YouTube is popular, and I'm sorry I won't be using it much. Copycats are welcome, though. I don't complain when others mimic my style. Have at it.

 Previous Post: New Web Hosting Service
 Next Post: (none)