I’ve subscribed to the Daily DX newsletter since a previous century. It’s the go-to source for updated DX information. Publisher Bernie McClenny, W3UR is also the long-time Editor of the ‘How’s DX?’ column in QST magazine. Bernie recently announced a format change for the daily letter from simple text inline to an attached PDF.

His announcement detailed how this change would streamline his production process and ended with a request for feedback:

“Please reply to this email with your comments on formatting issues.”

I replied including my preference that the format not change. What streamlines his process complicates mine since I must open an attached file that I can’t view well on my phone as its fixed size forces me to scroll around to read it. To be fair, viewing isn’t a problem on a desktop or laptop. There’s also a “problem” that since each PDF is its own file, I can’t search all of them at once in this format the way I can search text in my email client. There are ways around this too, but it adds steps to achieve what had been simple (for me) prior to this change.

Bernie replied the format change was a “done deal” causing me to wonder why he asked for feedback in the first place. Of course, I’m not without options, including dropping the subscription. Removing support for Bernie would feel bad, and I would miss the timely DX information he provides.

But I did sign up for an email newsletter, not a PDF formatted file…

I bounced this off a trusted friend and asked if I was just being a pain since there are workarounds available. He replied, “No, just an old guy waving your CHANGE SUCKS flag.” Dang! That would have stung even more had he not come back with an instant solution:

“Put the PDFs into a Linux share on your network and give Claude Code access to it. He’ll find what you want.”

Why didn’t I think of that? Claude can strip the text from incoming PDFs, and email it to me every morning as though nothing had changed. And since that data will be retained on my server, Claude could also answer any DX query I might come up with. He could even send me timely alerts for DXpedition activities.

That’s actually an improvement since the Daily DX often announces upcoming activities months in advance and it’s easy to forget these when the dates roll around. The potential to end up with even better DX information seems like a useful project — one that ends up being better than what I had before Bernie’s change.