A Shorthand Introduction to an Epidemic Form of Madness 

How would you judge a language translator who is forced to look up in a dictionary every two words of his text, because he is simply not  familiar enough with the vocabulary of the foreign language? The same applies to a DXer who is not in possession of his basic tools, the DX vocabulary, so to speak.

Callsign Allocations. One of these tools or prerequisites is to be (near-)perfectly knowledgeable, preferably by heart (!), as to which prefix (the first part of a callsign: e. g. "W4" in "W4BPD") - and sometimes also suffix (the second part of a callsign:  e. g. "XO" in "FT5XO") - represents a certain country or entity. An experienced and serious DXer rarely needs a reference book, a list, or a logging program to tell which country, region etc the callsigns belong to. There are only a relatively few cases where the callsign of a station does not give a clue as to where it is located (example: if you hear E51GGT, you cannot say by reference to his callsign whether he is in North Cook or South Cook, which are different DXCC entities). To make yourself familiar with the world of prefixes and suffixes, browse through the appropriate websites (see the Look-it-up-in-the-WEB box below).

Frequency Allocations. You will remember: knowledge of the frequency allocations of the amateur-radio service had been part of your licence examination. Radio amateurs should know rather precisely where they are allowed to communicate in a certain mode. In reality, however, things even turn out to be a bit more complicated. The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) has divided the world into three regions. Region I: Europe, Africa, the former USSR countries, Middle East (excluding Iran) and Mongolia; Region II: North, Central and South America including Hawaii, Johnston and Midway Islands, and Region III: the rest of Asia and Oceania. These regions felt obliged to define their own bandplans, on the basis of the worldwide general frequency allocations of the International Telecommunication Union  (ITU) in Geneva. These bandplans are as a rule supplemented by special national regulations. For your daily DX-work see the band-plan publications of the IARU and of your national radio organisation (see the Look-it-up-in-the-WEB box below).

Even if you do not want to become an expert in spherical geometry, you should know that the wave your antenna radiates, with certain very specific exceptions, follows the so-called great-circles around the earth. These lines run through your location and those of your QSO-counterpart. Communication from one to the other location is theoretically possible in two directions ("headings"): one which usually results in a relatively short distance - therefore called the short path (SP) - the other one in a relatively long distance: the long path (LP). As the LP-direction is the opposite heading, it is easily calculated by just adding 180 degrees to the SP-direction (LP=SP+180). Long-path propagation is not always possible but, if conditions allow, sometimes considerably better than short-path propagation - depending on the state of the ionosphere. You can find out by trial and error and by relying on a (hopefully: long!) experience, but also - very reliably so - by using one of the propagation-forecast programmes (see below).

If you intend to make sort of an exact multiband-prediction for a forthcoming DXpedition you would like to contact or undertake yourself, you better use one of the PC propagation calculators, the probably best one being the fantastic W6ELProp by W6EL. Have a look below at the frequency map delivered by this programme - for a certain date, a certain time, a solar flux of 85 (number of sunspots: 25), and a K-index of 2 - for the geographical coordinates of DJ2PJ: