FROM THE CEO By Bill Kyle, CEO, BLANDX

Several members took the time to write to HQ this month. I really appreciate that as I get tired of having to make these letters and answers up. It's easier when I just have to make up the answers.

New member Ted Towers writes

Should BLANDX be rated M for Mature audiences only?

Gee, Ted, I've been a part of BLANDX for about three decades. If there has ever been anything in these pages that's mature, I haven't seen it.

Member Mabel Warner of Bushyhead, Oklahoma writes,

I read that in California, fashionable DXers are having their tuning fingers pierced and wearing a ring with the logo of a favorite SWBC station. Do you think this fashion will reach the middle of the country in time for the next BLANDXFest? I think guys with pierced tuning fingers would be a real turn-on.

Mabel, if Glenn wanted DXers to have pierced tuning fingers, there would be a notch in the tuning knob for the ring to fit in. Some things just aren't natural.

Long-time member Johnny Santos e-mailed me this message:

The construction project in last month's technical column listed ten kilos of pot among the parts. I don't see how I could build anything that complex after even just a few tokes. Was that a misprint?

You're right, Johnny, it does say to get 10K pot. That won't happen again as we here at BLANDX don't condone the use of illegal drugs. We own stock in several hard-liquour companies and prefer to promote excessive alcohol consumption.

From Humptulips, Washington, Tracy Goldberg asks

What is the difference between a tentative and a presumed logging of a station?

That's easy, Tracy. Loggings are marked as presumed if the station is very formal in nature, e.g. ones that play classical music or opera or maybe are broadcasting something about their national inbred monarch. For example, "the BBC, I presume." In most cases, it's best to mark the station as tentative. Both words, however, mean the same thing - It's probably not anything else, but I'm too disinterested to hang around and confirm it as I really need to go empty my bladder.

Jason Forrest says he will be attending in his first DXpedtion next month and asks if I have any advice. How about not to wear overly tight clothing to DXpeditions. Remember, your companions want to be able to keep their food down. If you saw what Don Badger wears, you'd know what I mean.

Bob Morris asks

If you're on a ship in the middle of the ocean, how do you ground your antenna?

Bob, questions like those just make my head hurt.

Our annual BLANDXFest last month was a success in that we kept arrests under 27% of attendees this year. We also had some great donated door prizes. For the twelve people that won the bottled tomato sauce from Albania, please note that an actual translation of the label is floor polish. Sorry for any misunderstandings. The planning committee for next year's BLANDXFest will be holding a brief meeting in two weeks. I'm glad I'm not part of that. Seeing all those guys in their briefs is more than I could handle.

It turns out that the new video-version BLANDX Country List which we included in our last edition was not in a format commonly used outside of Burkina Faso. As the Country List Committee went to great effort to present the list in a manner that matches the intellectual level of the average BLANDX reader, we have converted it to an avi file which is viewable in Windows Media Player. Check it out at

BLANDX Country List (Windows AVI format) or

BLANDX Country List (Apple MOV format) .

Finally, as the CEO I want to remind you that the opinions expressed by individual BLANDX column editors are not necessary those of the BLANDX Corporation or of any sane, non-drugged, human being.