DXERS CALLING
On July 9 1946, the first edition of Radiio Australai's "DXers Calling" went to air. It was hosted by well-known shortwave enthusiasts of the era, including Ern Suffolk (SA) and Ted Tinning (Vic).

Later, it was managed bty Graham Hutchins (Melbourne) who had been the driving force behind the first Australian DX Club at the time.

Graham authored and hosted the shows until his untimely passing in 1965, when the ABC's DIrector of Overseas Services, Mt Peter Homfray, assumed hosting duties. At that time, Mr Gordon Cairns, Senior Administrator at RA, was writing the scripts. Later in 1965 I was then approached by Radio Australia to take over authoring of the programs, which I did until the shows were discontinued in October 1977. From 1965 until 1977, the programs were read by Peter Humfrays.

In 1975, the programs were being written by various members of the Australian Radio DX Club, chosen, trained and coordinated by myself.

There were several releases of DXers Calling, for each main target area - Europe, Africa, the Pacific, North America, and Asia, broadcast from the Shepparton transmitters.

The programs were also broadcast over the ABC's Domestic SW services from Lyndhurst (Victoria) at 8am on Sundays, from VLR and VLH, using 6150 and 11880 Khz. These transmissions were primarly directed to listeners in the outback and the islands.

The 30th anniversary of DXers Calling in 1976 was marked by special commemorative QSLs issued by Radio Australia and the ARDXC. The RA QSL showed a view of the Carnavon transmitting site in WA. The ARDXC QSLs were issued for all correct reports received at RA for DXers Calling during 1976. These reports were forwarded to ARDXC by RA, processed by ARDXC Committee members in Melbourne, and the ARDXC QSLs were than sent to RA here they were sent out to listeners.

We received several hundred reports for the ARDXC QSL!

The final edition of DXers Calling was on October 30, 1977.

DXers Calling was also translated into Japanese and broadcast each Sunday night, under the title "DX Time", in the Japanese service.

When the English DXers Calling was terminated, the ARDXC, through myself as coordinator, continued to write the programs for the Japanese Section.

DX Time had a massive following of several million listeners, mainly Japanese children who had become involved in what was known at the time as "BCL" (meaning "Shortwave Listening".

We continued with these tasks until the closure of the Japanese service.