DXing And Your Health
Editor: Dr. Philip Simpson
Welcome again to another column of DXing and Your Health!
At BLANDX, your health is important to us. After all, no one keeps paying dues after they've made their donation to Dead DXers' Stuff! With that in mind, I'm arranging for a special wellness clinic at the next BLANDXFest. There will be several different events which I'll list in a later column. Among other things, I've arranged for a professional friend of mine, urologist Dr. Tom Wheatley, to do free prostate exams. It's having people like Dr. Wheatley behind us that makes BLANDX such a great club. Tom owes this to me since he always beats me when we play golf. Of course, he practices all the time - he gets in at least eighteen holes every day. Now, I don't want the lady DXers to feel left out, which is why I'll be giving free gynecological exams. I've never studied that specialty, but I don't mind getting some hands-on experience.
Like Woody Allen, for most of us our brain is our second favorite organ. Mental health is just as important as physical health. Now, I know this is hard to believe if you've ever attended a DX convention, but some experts say that mental health issues are quite common among radio hobbyists.* Oddly enough, the same experts have attended the DX conventions frequented by BLANDX readers. Dr. Tiffany Dunbar is a researcher at the University of Southern Tennessee and has been studying DXing related disorders for over fifteen years. I've asked her to list a few samples of her findings and to explain the theoretical basis for her work.
DX Psychiatric Disorders
Dipolar Disorder: A DX disorder characterized by building antennas that look identical on each side, then hoisting them in a tree by means of a counterweighted counterpoise called a rock. If the rock is not sufficiently counterweighted, the illness is referred to as Dipolar II.Unipolar Disorder: A DX disorder caused by an insane desire to get up at six in the morning to hear the Burmese Army station signal flutter over the North Pole.
Rapid Cycling Disorder: Dipolar or Unipolar disorder that happens frequently.
African Hallucination: A rare disorder that causes one Dxer to hear Guinea Bissau when others can't.
Misidentification Delusion: So common it's not considered an illness anymore.
Treatments
There are no cures for these tragic illnesses. Lithium has been used to counterpoise dipolar disorder. Anti-psychotics have been used to squelch hallucinations and delusions. The only known treatment is to string 500' of wire in a tree (arboreal misidentification disorder) and buy a bigger radio (bells and whistles delusion).
Psychological Theories of DX Diseases
Father Freud: Refusing to pee at the top of the hour indicates that the DXer has not successfully gone through the anal stage. This should be obvious anyway.
Father Adler: Listlogging is masculine protest, the desire to have power over DXers with Germanic names.
Father Jung: The tall tree is an ancient archetype, which dates from the time of Marconi. This archetype produces the innate desire to put wire in it.
Father JB Watson: Let me fiddle with your BFO and then you can correctly learn from my example.
Father William James: One's first log of the Burmese Army Station is a numinous experience that causes a conversion to MARE.
Father RD Lang: What disease?
Finally, in last month's column about how to avoid back pain while DXing, I meant to say that if standing you should tighten your abdominal muscles and tuck in your buttocks. I'm not sure why I wrote to tighten your sphincter and tuck your toes into your armpits. That's the last time I write a column after trying out new free drug samples!
