All Time DX Lists

What DX has been heard in the British Isles?

Most DXers like to challenge themselves to hear as many different faraway stations as possible. But to help them to know what has been heard by other DXers they need a reliable source of information. This is akin to bird watching records kept for over a century here in UK.

2023 Editions Now Available!

For over 67 years the Medium Wave Circle has published interesting reports of long distance reception of faraway radio stations in its newsletter Medium Wave News. Over time this collection grew and the Circle began to distill these reports into compilation lists showing which faraway radio stations were being heard by listeners in the UK and Ireland. These lists became known as the “All Time DX Lists” even though they only really contain data since the 1950s to the present day.

The oldest list compiles records of stations in North America heard here, but similar lists have been created for South America, Central America, Africa and Asia. Before the 1980s lists were updated and published infrequently but with advent of computers it became easier to compile data and lists have been published annually. Initially the lists were published in Medium Wave News or as paper supplements as they grew in size. New entries in recent years and continued historical research means that the files now are large spreadsheets.

“1591 North American stations logged by listeners in British Isles since 1950s”

– Andrew Brade; curator of the All Time DX lists

These lists record success by DXers only located in the British Isles partly because for many years most Circle members lived in the UK. But expanding the area of reception would make the list less useful because reception varies significantly between Europe, Scandinavia and the British Isles. Even so, a British list is probably still helpful if you are listening in north west Europe.

Circle members can download the four All Time DX Lists from the Circle’s online group (files section). The lists are available as pdfs and also as Excel spreadsheets.

These list every known logging from 1953 to the present day and they also indicate the likelihood of reception in each year. Loggings of rare signals and so-called “UK firsts” are attributed to the determined listener. You’ll be able to see when those “once in a decade” signals have been heard and how reception has been affected by the last six solar cycles. The lists are as comprehensive as possible and include stations as they have come and gone over the years.

This year we are trialling a new format in addition to the traditional one. The files with “x2” in the name contain the four all-time lists in a split page format. The frequencies are distributed over two pages meaning that the document does not need to be magnified to read on most screens

The All Time Lists are only available to members of the Medium Wave Circle and are one of the many benefits of joining our community. All four lists along with explanatory information are available in the file storage area of the Medium Wave Circle’s online group (access button below).

If you are a Circle member and don’t yet have access to the online group please request access by sending us a message here.