I've been asked this, many times: "What got you interested in radio, space weather, and the science of radio-wave propagation?"

I'll ask you, too: What got you interested in radio? What hooked you?

What is your story?

In my case, it all started ...

Here's my short story video:



The following picture is of my first shortwave radio, discovered in my home sometime between 1971 and 1973: a Sony portable transistorized four-band radio receiver. This was my very first shortwave radio (well, truthfully, it was my dad's). This radio is responsible for my love of radio, electronics, and communications.



(above) Sony Portable 4-Band Radio - the model 7F-74DL (my First Radio)
(link: https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/sony_7f74dl7_f_74_d.html)

I still use this, sometimes, when listening to late-night AM-broadcast-band-radio DX. It is horrible for shortwave radio listening, as it has no noise blanker. For MW (Medium-wave) AM Broadcast DXing at night, it is excellent.  The internal bar antenna is very directional so I can rotate the radio around until I get the best reception of some station.  Back when I was a child, that made the radio very fun to use.

This next radio is a really capable military surplus radio circa WWII or shortly after (the late 1940s, early 1950s).  This radio was my world starting around 1975.  From Medium-wave to Shortwave, this radio could hear a pin drop around the world!  Many late nights when I was supposed to be sleeping, I was up with the light dimmed and the tubes singing signals from exotic places.



(above) Espey R366 Tube Receiver (my Second Radio)

What is your story?

Addendum:

A follow-up video:



I look forward to your story.  73 de NW7US

My interest was, sorta, preps.  Living on a rock on the middle of the ocean I wanted a way to communicate if some sort of natural disaster (hurricane, tsunami, shipping strike, etc) ended up killing regular telephone and internet comms.

My interest has expanded into a lot of the other aspects of ham radio and the prep aspect has become somewhat secondary.

Emergency Communications.

WWII movies as a kid seeing humongus "Walkie Talkies".

Toy walkie-talkies on Citizen Band Radio frequencies as a kid.

A CB license while in high school.

Four years active duty Army Signal Corps, Certified Electronics Instructor.

Ham license and communications officer while a federal employee.

(LOL... FCC Office of Inspector General their Law Enforce branch, coming to me for technical advice related to radio communication in the field.)

I watched my Dad listen to BBC and other European shortwave stations during WWII using this Philco.



Then my uncle (who was in the Signal Corps) gave me a crystal set when he returned from the war.



What really intreagued me was how something so simple could pick up signals from 100 miles away (WRALin Raleigh). Shortly after that, I started playing with the Philco, heard some hams talking on 80 Meters, and my Dad introduced me to a local ham. With his help, I built a regen receiver and a one tube transmitter, then passed my Novice when I was 13. Upon graduating from college, I went to work for Hammarlund in Mars Hill, N.C.

I've been pounding brass ever since.





The receiver is original, the transmitter is a re-creation.

I think I had just started junior high school. I built the AM radio project and had it next to my bed on the floor, listening with one of those tiny, old fashioned earphones. For some reason that I still don't fathom, I leaned over the edge of the bed and, by the light of a flashlight, started trying different connections to the coils. All of a sudden 40M AM broadcast stations came booming in. I had no idea what I was listening to, but it was so cool, so very exotic, that I knew I had to learn more. Ran down to the library the next day to learn all I could.

That led to this beauty, which I bought with my own saved allowance:



and a lot of late night listening with headphones when I should have been sleeping.

I didn't get into ham radio proper until they dropped the code requirement. I took my tech and general on the very day the requirement ended. I got my Extra soon after that. Yes, just another no code Extra ruining the hobby

My story is pretty similar to aa777888-2. I think I had almost every X-in-1 kit radio shack produced.

That lead to more advanced kits, the pinnacle for me was the Global Patrol Regenerative Receiver
which I built from a kit. Tuned around and heard WWV and that fueled my shortwave obession (and a slight obsession
with WWV as well.) Lots and lots of radios since then. A big one for me was a DX-100, which was considerably better,
and not long after I got my first PC-compatible (Tandy 1000) I figured out how to use a frequency discriminator chip to
drive an input pin and decoded Wefax on my PC and was hooked on digital (this later lead to playing with packet
on a tech license.)

I tried to get licensed when I was about 10 -- back when the FCC still gave the exams and traveled to major cities 2-4X a year.

I froze on the code and wrote down the dots and dashes and translated them later, but failed badly. Absolutely no elmering
of any kind and not enough practice made getting a license impossible for me. When I got older (mid 80s) I spent months
working on getting 5WPM and finally passed a tech test, and the code kept from from upgrading. No-code happened and
it took me a while but I eventually went in to an exam session and left as an Extra.

I'm just in it to meet hot women.

The US Civil War.

Well....sorta. My father was a big history buff, and was a member of a civil war reenacting group. Cavalry. On the way to re-enactments, we'd usually travel as a group in case someone had problems with their car or horse trailer. Naturally, we had CBs. I thought they were pretty cool. One year for Christmas, I asked for a hand held CB...you know, the old school RadioShack models with the super long telescoping whip. Anywho, as luck would have it, there was a group of CB operators in the area that could pick me up (80s/90s). Spent many summer nights ragchewing on the CB. Slowly upgraded to a mobile with a mag mount, to an SSB rig, then a dedicated base rig, up to a quad beam (PDL-II). At some point, I started broadening the hobby. Experimented with wire antennas and a cheap antenna tuner. Bought and started learning about scanning and other bands. Took a ham radio tech class.

From a RadioShack telescoping whip CB walkie talkie, to an extra ticket, legal limit amplified "dc to daylight" setup, with plenty of room for 160M...and maybe 630M (some day...not high on the priority list).

15-16 years old-me and a buddy tried to talk to each other from our houses (3/4 mile away maybe in separate neighborhoods) on CB radio.  We were rarely successful.

Fast forward 15 years-ham radio for emergency comms.  BUT, again, this was built on the foundation I had as a 15 year old kid on CB.  And, the science of the radio wave propagation.

Lots of similar experiences with several of the above.  Dad was into CB radio way back then and evolved into Ham radio.  I remember him learning CW and having to drive to Chicago for the exam.  Our house way out in the country in Indiana looked like a freakin' NORAD/SETI station.  Two 50' towers, PDL II beams, wire antennas.  Yeasu FT-101 full meal deal (radio, scope, amp).  I didn't stand a chance.  I resisted/wasn't interested in the old man's hobby until I became an old man with kids of my own.  Then it all kinda made sense.  

You did it wrong. 15-16 year old me and buddy made it 3-4 miles. External antennas help a lot.

I always wanted one of those cheap "Base and walkie combos" from Sears or JC Penny's when I was

a kid in the 70's. I ended up with a General Electric 23 channel CB, Pace power supply and an

Archer fiberglass base antenna on a small TV tower. This was spring of 77 IIRC. I chatted with

the locals occasionally but really got into it that winter during a blizzard (Ohio). Dad had gone out with

a friend in his Bronco pulling people out of ditches and I could talk to them while they were out.

That setup was hit by lightning the following spring and that was the end of that.

FF to high school and we were using the CB again (mid 80's) cuz cell phones weren't a thing then.

This led to a buddy dragging this over to my house. (file photo)



I had already been tinkering with CB's and started working on them, but the Zenith was fascinating.

Back then there were more interesting stations on shortwave. BBC, Radio Havana and WWCR as well as real

cold war numbers stations.

This led to my interest in ham radio around 1990. Did the 5 and 13 WPM CW for Novice and General in 1991.

Could never break the 20 WPM hurdle and settled for General until they dropped the code requirement.

So here I am some 27 years later, a "some code" Extra mucking it up.

Born in 1960.
My Dad was the neighborhood tv repairman and I'd listen to the SW bands with him.
It was fascinating listening to Radio South Africa, etc, and how well the stations came in.
We followed the space program closely.
Led me to this hobby and an successful career in the heavy industrial electronics and automation industry.

I like gadgets.

When I was a kid, I was playing around in our basement and I found a copy of The Radio Amateur's Handbook from the early 1960s. I think it was 1960 (I still have it somewhere) (I found it in the late 60s early 70s). The reason this handbook was in our house is because whatever needed repair in our house, my dad repaired it. He wasn't a ham, but he used the information in the handbook to fix stuff around the house: TVs and radios. The handbook had stuff like tube pin out diagrams and stuff like that in it.

So, I was leafing through this handbook and I had no idea what I was looking at, but I saw all the pictures of guys sitting in front of all this equipment and I thought it was very cool. When my dad got home from work, I asked him about it and he explained to me, what ham radio was. Again, he wasn't a ham, but he worked as an electrical field engineer and he knew several hams.

So from that point point on, I wanted to get into ham radio. It sounded interesting and fun. But, I had no idea how to get into ham radio. I even went fishing with one of the hams my dad knew and tried to discuss it with him, but I didn't get much information out of him. Looking back, I suppose at that time in history, people didn't think that a kid could become a ham. And they were probably right: this was LONG before volunteer examiners and question pools and all the stuff there is today. You went before the FCC to take your exam and you really had only a vague idea of what might be asked on the test. I have read that a part of the test included you drawing whatever circuit the FCC examiner told you to draw and then explain what each component did and how the circuit worked. Things like that. So, I can see where it would have been unusual for a kid to become a ham.

Fast forward to high school. I saw a guy on the school bus who had a ham radio magazine and I started talking to him about it. He told me that one of our high school teachers was mentoring him in ham radio. The next day, I went and saw the teacher and got in on it. Back then, the Novice license test was given by anyone who was at least a General Class ham (to upgrade from Novice, you had to sit before an FCC examiner). So, the teacher would give me the Novice exam. The first thing you had to do was pass the CW test. So, several of us went in to a classroom every day at lunch time and we practiced CW. After a week or two, I went to the teacher and told him I was ready. He gave me the CW test, I passed and then he sent the application in for the FCC to send him the written test.

And the rest is history. I stayed friends with that teacher right up until the day he went  SK a couple years ago. I talked to him on the phone the day before he dropped over dead. In fact, despite the fact that I spent most of my life in the southwestern US, I flew back every year and went to Dayton with him and a few other hams I knew from those early days. He always introduced me to people and said, "I created a monster when I gave him his first ham test."

A few other comments: my dad knew hams and respected hams, so when I told him I was becoming a ham, he said he would buy me a radio if I passed. And he did. He bought me a Tec Tec Century 21 and a Nye Viking Master Key.  Within a year or so of that, I got a part time job after school and around the time I graduated from high school I had a top of the line, state of the art station consisting of a Ten Tec Omni D and a Heathkit SB-200 amplifier (all paid for by yours truely). Because I started out with CW for no particular reason I have always been a CW guy and to this day, on HF I spend 99% of the time I am on the air on CW. If you work me at low speed CW on SKCC or whatever, the odds are that I am using that Nye Viking Master Key.

Also FWIW: I took my general before an FCC examiner. My mother drove me to Monroeville PA (suburb of Pittsburgh) to take the exam.  I stayed a General for years before upgrading to Advanced through the VE system. When I took the Advanced exam, I took the 20 wpm code test the same day and passed. I then went back a month later and took the Extra theory test.
When I passed my General class exam, my dad bought me a KDK 2 meter mobile rig used, from some guy he worked with.
I am also probably one of the only hams from my era who was never into CB.

Frank: I have one of those slat board transmitters like the picture you posted earlier.

Had a set of walkie-talkies as a child.
Used CB when hunting in Michigan UP.
Bought one of the first FRS sets available (Motorola with no display).
Used FRS radios when hunting.
Liked the idea of communications without the need of cell phones.
Got autocross racing clubs in area to start using FRS radios for course control (big advancement from hand signals).
Used FRS radios for car to car when traveling with family and friends.
Wanted something better than skin pack FRS radios.
Saw Baofeng and got interested.
Bought Baofeng and took exams (All three).
Moved up from Baofengs to APRS, D-Star, DMR.
Use mostly for communications for running events.
Still learning about DMR.
Like to monitor and occasionally talk on D-Star using HT an DVAP.
Scan local repeaters and calling frequencies while driving.
Don't do much with HF because I'm tied to radio down in the dungeon.

Thank you to those of you who have been kind enough to comment and to read the article and comments.

If you have not yet viewed the two videos, to which I link in the original article, the two are listed, again, below.

I know that many are busy or are on some sort of mobile device on which it is difficult to view a YouTube video.

If, however, you have some spare time and don't mind listening (you don't have to watch, I'm not that photogenic), please click on the first and second link, following:

Here's my video with my story about the beginning of my radio journey:



Addendum: A follow-up video:



Thank you for watching.

73

My father had a shortwave radio, later found out found CB radio in the garage with a dipole antenna in the back yard.
I heard him talking to Australia, Europe, etc.
This was around 1962.
I know he was not a ham radio operator.

Fast forward to 1965, they bought me a shortwave receiver.
That started it.

Fast forward to 1974, when I was in the USAF Security Police, and was assigned to work the Wing Command Post for about 6 months.
At that time, the B-52's operated in clear text, and I had the chance to relieve the radio operator while they were out smoking.
That was my downfall.
I got my ham license in 1984, and should have been earlier, but kids, jobs, you name it got in the way.

Fast forward to now, and I have an older Yaesu  FT-1000D, Icom-7300 in the primary station, a Kenwood TS-480HX in the truck, and run digital from home, plus SSB HF mobile.

(Yeah, I have it bad now)

Let's see it!

My original wasn't so pretty. It was made from an old orange crate, with parts stripped from a defunct AM broadcast receiver. It also originally used the 6V6 from the BC receiver instead of the 6AG7. It chirped horribly, so my Elmer suggested the 6AG7, which put out a little less power, but had a clean, T9 signal. The original coil was wound with "bell wire", insulated with wax impregnated cotton.

I got into ham for
emergency communications and part of prepping

Ultra Stupid Short Version:
2 letters 1 number- Y2K

eta: finally got my ticket in 2011...

This. All great empires come to an end and I fear I will be alive to see the end of ours.

I have been listening to the shooting bench with Cope Reynolds for over 10 yrs.. He was talking about the uv5r and comms about 4 years ago.    I didn't know they dropped the CW requirements and the test was open source..  Little did I know I would like it so much..  Basically I had gear but no comms..   Then I just started learning CW and was flat frickin amazed how well it worked..

Prosise

I had a Sharp 'boombox' when I was in junior high, probably 1985 or so.  At some point I tried listening to the shortwave band and got hooked on that quickly.  I had qsl cards from about every shortwave station on the air in those days. That led to learning code and passing the novice and general a few months apart in 1986.  I had a blast with it for a few years til I discovered girls, cars and beer.

I was off the air til maybe six or seven years ago when I rediscovered it all.  Bought some new equipment but still have the kenwood ts-520 I started with. Been having a lot of fun, mostly chasing cw dx on hf and messing around with the fm and ssb satellites.

Ended up becoming a paramedic, so most of my knowledge of electricity is more related to calcium and potassium channels and biphasic defibrillation than anything to do with radio, but I finally got around to studying for and passing the extra exam three years ago.  I do get to play with radios at work though..

I just built mine because I thought it was cool. I have never actually put it on the air. I have transmitted with it into a dummy load, with a watt meter inline; so it does work.
That power supply was homebrewed by my dad when I was a kid, for our television.  A few years ago, I re-capped it, put a new line cord on it, fused it, put a switch on it, and added that octal plug to connect this transmitter to it. I think it is a really cool thing to have a power supply that my dad built. Note the chassis made from galvanized steel that he made. He worked in steel mills for over 50 years and I am sure that galvanized is something that followed him home from the mill.

Also note in the background, atop all that junk (right next to the AK spring and AK triggers) are the other coils I wound for different bands. In the foreground is the 1/4" key jack.

Beautiful job! That's a nice power supply your Dad built.

Which oscillator circuit are you using? Grid-Plate (RF choke in cathode circuit), Modified Pierce (RF choke in screen grid circuit), or other?

Is that one of AF4K's crystals (modern crystal in old FT-243 holder)?

I don't know how to turn this right side up.
This is from the Radio Amateurs Handbook. I don't remember what year.
Yes the crystal is from AF4K. I have been buying crystals from him for many years. That one in the picture is obviously just for show: that is a crystal for the AM portion of 75 meters (fundamental).

Copy that. And to his credit, my buddy said that exactly but I didn't think the old man would go for that.

My Dad got hooked on CBs back during the CB craze in the late 1970s.  He also bought his first scanner at that time.

So, I got hooked on communications when I was a little boy and the interest kept growing.

After years of CB and listening to the PD and FD, I got my Tech license in 1993.  I upgraded to General last year.

Emergency comms.  came from CB, cheap walkies, always had an interest. As a preparedness minded person, comms seemed a logical next step. Got my tech and general at the same time never looked back. As it turns out I love the science and tech of being an amateur operator. I now find myself exploring ALL kinds of stuff, building things etc.

From the time I was little, my dad had a very nice short-wave set that we'd listen to on occasion. Had walkie-talkies as a kid out on the farm where we could get almost a mile. In high school, the CB craze was on. Didn't think much about it until a few years ago. Decided it would be a good idea to be able to communicate in an emergency. That, and there were a few times when the wife and I would take a road trip that we didn't have a cell signal. Bought a few Baofengs and programmed them. Then I bought a Yaesu VX8-DR. In late 2016, I finally got off my duff and took the Technician test and passed. Celebrated by buying a Yaesu FT-991 for the house and an FT-857d for the car. I decided it would be a good idea to be able to communicate with my brothers in Texas should SHTF. So, last April I took the test and got my General. Have talked with several hams within a few miles of where my brothers live just to make sure I could.

Fast forward to October and I get picked to go to Puerto Rico to provide comms in a real disaster. Helluva crash course.

My Dad was a radio operator with the Navy during WWII and for the Army Transport Service in Japan during the Korean War. He had an amateur license and had an old transmitter and surplus BC-348 at the house when I was growing up. I used to play around with the receiver. In the 60s I started to learn code with a vinyl record but didn't get to far. Fast forward to the 80s. My father in law was an amateur and EE. He bought me a study guide, gave me his code tapes and a healthkit keyed kit for Christmas. I plowed right through it got my Novice and within a few months worked way up to Extra. It rubbed off on my son when he was a teen ager. He got his ticket and ended up getting a bachelors and masters in EE and does RF hardware and software development. I got back into it when I retired last fall and he helped me get set up again.

Growing up on the farm in a corner of a county that was a low priority for the state in a place that flooded every time someone flushed a toilet in town we used CBs (channel 33) to coordinate clean up efforts between the farmers . Bought my first truck at 13 along with a zero bar and a sundrop , had a Wilson 1000 and a ltd 29 cobra on it with in the year . Me and my friends would talk to each other on the radios when out and about and some nights I would just sit in my truck and talk on the cb , since I was near I95 and the hwy from the ports there was always traffic on 19 . I got a scanner by the time I was 16 and had that in the truck also so I would always have that on along with the CB . I wanted to learn more about the workings of the cb so I tried talking to some of the local shops to see if they would help me learn a little about them , both guys were pretty much jerks about it . I had heard of Ham radio from some other CBers but there were none locally so I had no way of really learning much about it .

Well life rolled on , every truck I got would drop my CB in and would hop on it time to time . Got into jeeps and met a few hams through that hobby which kinda re ignited my curiosity about it . Not long after I went on a trail ride with a bunch of the guys and we were around the camp fire in the mountains of far western NC  and one of the guys walks to the back of the jeep grabs a metal brief case and pulls the stuff out and starts setting stuff up on his tailgate , with in minutes I began to hear morse code so I get up and walk over to check it out . I ask him about it and he tells me he was running a low power ham HF radio , he then tells me he just finished a CW contact in CO , well I'm impressed but not hooked he tells me theres a station in FL that was calling for him so he goes back to his paddle and makes some noise with it and they go back and forth for a minute or so . After he finishes he tells me he is only running 5 watts and I ask him about could he do voice comms he said yeah in a couple of modes which flew right over my head at the time . He then spins a dial hits a button spins a little more and grabs the mike and says cq cq QRP a couple of times and a guy comes back from eastern Pa instantly , ok I'm hooked . He talks to the guy briefly and then he said let me show you another thing about the ham stuff , he tells me to jump in the jeep and open his console he climbs in from the passenger side and proceeds to show me his cb and his dual band radio and explains to me while we where on the trail he was talking to guys in GA ,NC ,TN and even got one from KY on it while we were taking a break in a mountain top then proceeded to tell me about repeaters and simplex then he puts his call out on 52 and a guy comes back with crystal clear audio from about 30 miles away , he hands me the mic and tells me to say hello and talk to the guy for a minute which I did , ok I'm in the net and being dumped into the live well . Over the weekend him and another guy tell me more about ham . I remembered seeing some Ham and comm threads here in the AR15.com survival forum so I go back and read them and start posting up which ARjedi and a few of the other guys were extremely helpful , from what I learned from them and taking a few practice test after a few weeks I drove a hour and half to take a test and to be dumped into the frying pan .

Been licensed since 06 now and a member of 2 clubs and the DEC of my district here in southern Va , still enjoy it and find new parts of the hobby I have not explored all the time .

The driver was less than complete confidence with me and a group of friends that communications infrastructure will always be available. No childhood or school or military background in electronics, I was employed as a data network admin for a number of years. Got my Technician at the age of 59, General some months after that, will go for Extra when I am doing even half of what one can do with a General. Outstanding hobby and lifestyle I love it and wish I had found it a few decades back.

I had been interested in electronics and ham radio since a young kid.  I'd built crystal radios, even sold them at
school.  Used 1N34A diodes instead of the galenium crystal/cat whisker detectors, and even sold them at school.

Later Knightkit walkie talkies, some SW radio kits, never anything "ham" quality at that time.  While still in high
school I built Heathkit stereo gear, a bass amplifier, and 5-ch R/C gear for model airplanes.  I had also began
building speakers, both musical instrument and stereo/hifi speakers, something I still do to this day.

I had always wanted to get into ham radio, but never the money or a way to take the license exams, etc.

Fast forward to a hurricane about 10 years ago.  No phones, no nothing for weeks.  I bought a Grundig S350DL,
an AM/FM/SW receiver.  I began listening to it, and up into the SW bands, out in my workshop.  That led me to
wanting a good tabletop all band receiver.  Several friends who were hams suggested the Icom R75.

K9ZW, who posts here on occasion, came up with a good deal for a used/like new low-mileage R75 and I bought
it.  Then I realize I needed a better antenna than a 50' spool of hookup wire stretched out and tossed out the
window and strung along the fence.  I built a big dipole for it.

One thing led to another, and I woke up one morning in a tub of ice, missing a kidney, and an Extra license on
the wall.  I'm fuzzy on how all that happened.

Seriously, I studied my @$$ off for a few weeks, took and passed all three tests.  I didn't just memorize answers,
though a lot of it IS memorization.  The electronics questions I actually calculated the answers, in case someone
wants to know.  How high you can put up a tower within 5 miles of an airport, yada yada, that IS something you
memorize.  Anyway, I passed.

A few days later a big box arrived from a friend... a note inside.  "This is one of my spare field day rigs.  Use it
until you decide what you want to buy, or if you want to keep it, I'll make you a good deal on it."

Took me a few days to cut my SW dipole to the 75 meter band, and add legs for 40 and 20 meter, get it tuned.

And I was on the air 6 days after the hamfest where I tested.

On the way out of the test session at that hamfest, one of the VE's grabbed me by the arm, dragged me back
in... "Have you thought about becoming a VE?"  Not  yet, but I did that, too.

So, that's how I got here.

And the next time there is a hurricane, I can set up anywhere, here, or anywhere I can, and be on the air in
15 minutes, running off a big gel cell, maintaining charge with solar panels, a full 100 w SSB station on any
band from 75 up to 10 meters.

Oh yes!

Truthfully, TBS's Alabama tornado thread made me think about it.
Alabama 2011 Tornadoes

Then I started building stuff.

I had my dad's old Yaseu FT-707, Hustler 5BTV & assorted odds n ends in storage, untouched,  for probably 15+ years after he died.  After retiring & moving to our post retirement location I thought I would see whether things still worked.  I am pretty much a gadget junky & this fit that bill nicely.  I had played with digital electronics in the past & tend towards DIY for most projects.

I picked up my general license and started seeing how much function I could get out of the 707 with what was available.   After putting up a few different wire antennas I was pretty much hooked.  The ladder fed 160m FWL actually let me do quite a bit of DX.   The 707 went from slightly flaky to mostly flaky and was replaced with a TS-590S.  That was an eye opener & things have gone down hill from there ... now running with an ALS-1306 via an MFJ-998 into two different open wire fed FWL's & a frankensteined  BTV + radial field that covers everything 160m -> 10m, with a TM-V71 & collinear vertical for local repeater comms.

This..

My dad is a ham. When I was a little kid, I heard my dad talking on the radio and learned all the ham slang at an early age. Kindergarten teachers once complained to my mom that I would run around screaming - "CQ DX CQ DX, QRZ?!". They did not know what that meant. LOL.
I got really interested in having my own radio and a callsign when I was in my early teens. Back then I had to be a shortwave listener for several years before I could apply for a real callsign. I built my first HF radio when I was about 16-17, if I remember correctly. It has been a lot of fun from then on.

This is the only ham shack picture that survived. I was about 18 back then. All equipment was homebrew, from scratch, except the monitor and a small voltmeter on top of the radio. The amp had a single 4CX800a ceramic tube. Picture quality is not the greatest but we did not have a luxury of being able to snap a color picture and have prints done at a store. I had to develop the film myself and then make prints in my dark room. No other options were available in the "progressive" country I lived in. Commercially made ham radios were unobtainable. We had no choice but to build our own from parts bought at a "black market".



This was the antenna we used. A four element cubic quads at about 120 ft. Best antenna I ever had. Unfortunately I only have this picture.

Wanted for a murder I didn't commit....

Did you and your friends escape from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground?  And if people have a problem, if no one else can help, and if they can find you, maybe they can hire... the A-Team?



I was always into tech and gadgets growing up.  I had a toy when I was small that was basically a field telephone.  Two (kid-grade) POTS phones on either end of a 30' cable.  Never could find another kid as enthusiastic about them as me.  Same thing later with walkie talkies, and eventually I put a CB in my first vehicle as a teen.  Few years later I joined the military and got myself into an avionics shop at a helo squadron (never found a more wretched hive of scum and villainy).  That is a good place to be a geek, as I met a lot of like-minded folks.  Started hanging out here (well, the survival forum back then) and soaking up knowledge from the fantastic Elmers here (shout-out to ar-jedi, though he's certainly not the only one), did a bunch of practice tests online and went to the local club for a test session.  At that test session I ran into my supervisor from the avionics shop!  Turns out he was a ham, and was even on the club board.  I got my tech ticket, joined that club, eventually took my supervisor's position on the board, got my general, moved to Alaska, got my Extra (and 2x1!) and that's about how we got to today.  With family and work I haven't been as active as I'd like, but that is changing this year (still got the family, just making a commitment to better manage our time).

It's funny, from that field telephone toy all those years ago, now I have a career in telecom, installing fancier versions of that basic technology for a living.  I guess that's a happy ending for me!

My first Alien abduction

My dad was a ham from way back in the days. Like 1930s. Got the seed planted.

My girlfriend's dad is a HAM, and I thought it was pretty cool watching and listening to him send CW. I happened to see the thread on here about the cheap Baofeng radios and how easy it was to get a license, then I saw Piccolo and a few others post about the PRC-320. Next thing you know, I'm driving to Pittsburgh to take my test, got the tech and general knocked out in one shot. Found a 2m radio I put in the car, an Icon 718 for the house, a PRC-320 to play around with, and wires strung up between trees all over my yard.

actually it was one of these i got for christmas when i was 12 that got me interested in ham , then life got in the way and when i was in my late 50's i got my tech, gen, extra. dont know if the pic showed its an old monkey wards 6 band sw receiver.

My interest was 2 sided.  There was a group of us that talked on the cb daily/nightly.  A few started talking about it and how they ditched the code requirement.  Took about a year (I was licensed in 94), but we all migrated over to 2M simplex.   Since then a few have moved, and the group split due to stupid shit.

The other side was storm spotting. County I lived in at the time had a really active group.  That lasted 2 years and I got out of it. It was pretty much like all the ham clubs at the time.  Full of old guys that resented us new no-code hams (despite me being a Tech+ by this point).

Now days, I don't have any gear at my house just yet since I bought it in October.  Nothing in my car either as I have changed my daily driver due to my new drive distance.

in 1984 I was 11, and my uncle was a long haul truck driver. He had that CB radio in his Peterbuilt 359. He stopped at our house for the night, and I was allowed to play in his truck all night. I needed a handle, and he called me Thrasher... I was on ch 8 all night long.

Now I talk on a radio for a living, and am an Extra.

I returned to college to earn my Electrical Engineering degree a few years ago, and studied over my spring to summer semester break last year. Got my general right out of the chute. The thing that got me into was doing some classes in RF and communications, just seemed like a way to learn more about the stuff I was learning at the university.

I currently play with 2m/70cm stuff, saving to buy some HF equipment. I'll be stuck with digital modes due to antenna restrictions at my apartment. HF is the more 'science-y' side for me, and the VHF/UHF is more utility.

For me it was a smart assed co worker that saw a picture of an old military set with the hand generator. He laughed and said he could picture me sending out Morse messages like some kind of leftover holdout Japanese soldier.

I told him I could get a license to run that rig and when eh said, "No way" I instantly buckled down and started studying. You guys told me where to got for the QRZ study guide.

I got off work about 10 days later, took my test a couple days after that and Bingo! Instant general.

Meanwhile I scouted and timing was perfect. The PRC 320s were being surplussed off at a decent price and that was all she wrote.

After a while I got a regular Icom rig and set up a decent antenna in the yard and off I went running. WAS and DXCC inside my first year.

ETA shortly thereafter I was blamed for sending CW messages as a holdout Japanese corporal. You guys KNOW I would never do such a thing.

Wait. I thought you came in here for home décor ideas.