How did you get into the Radio?

I started on the CB radio 10 years ago when I was 14. My best mate in school and I went into a radio shop in Mold in our lunch hour looking at some sort of Walkie Talkie/PMR radios so we could talk to each other when at home. He lived in Brynford and I lived at the top of Holywell at the time. We were only a mile away from each other but with a hill between the two of us...

Well we went into the shop and asked about some sort of radio / pmr radios to talk to each other. The man sold us two Handheld CB Radios. One was a Midland Ready Rescue and the other was a Maxcom 7E...We got them home and arranged to meet on a channel at a certain time...I couldn't hear him and he couldn't hear me!

I started playing around with it and found a man talking on a channel, the first person I heard on this CB! Well I keyed up and said "HELLO". He prob said "QSK come in" but not knowing what that meant I stayed quiet... They started talking again and I did it again... Next thing was "We know where you live"... That was it, batteries came out, rubber duck came off and under the bed it went!!! I didn't get it out for some weeks. I then started to listen and got hooked. Me and my mate got a silver rod up (which impressed my Dad!) and I upgraded my handheld to a Fidelity 2000...at least I thought it was upgrading!! I ended up with a Belcom LS102. (If you know of one being sold plz email me. I would like to get my hands on another)

Well that's how I got into it. You can all have a yawn and a stretch and wake yourselves up now...!!

Took the screws off with a screwdriver

26SD122_spirittalk wrote:Took the screws off with a screwdriver

HE HE HE HE

listening to my brothers am ge rig and got my first hand held from a market in london for £5, when i was 13/14 (1982/1983) got my first 40ch.

The main reason I got into radio was when I was teenage schoolboy was due to hideous shyness , I was very shy and arkward around girls. I had heard thay a girl I had a major crush on was on CB radio and it seemed that a few of the cool kids at school had a rig, so when your that age you want to be part of the cool people lmao

I managed to con my folks into to getting me the Rotel RVC240 rather than the 22o. I told them that the extra switches where to stop TVI and other things lmao

So next followed, a 5 amp PSU, Rotel RVC240 and a dial a match aerial on a metal groundplane in the loft.

Many hours of fun where had with that little radio in the early 1980's and it helped to build up my confidence as well.

One of the cool kids had a rig in his car, one of the girls in our group of friends, had a boyfriend who was slightly older and drove a Ford Cortina in yellow WOW !!!!!!!!

I think it was one version of the Ham International Concorde series and heard him working DX and was hooked. If memory serves me right he also had a Zetagi mobile Linear of some kind.

The Nato 2000 was my first brand spanking new rig, coupled to a silver rod. I then managed to buy a really nice Cobra 148 from a bloke who had gone on to be a radio amateur. This cobra had a lot of extras on and was in nice condition. I am sorry I ever sold it as would make a lovely secondry rig lol

I have been interested in Amateur band SWL for a long time too and also SW Broadcast band listening.

I sold the radio in the end when I moved on to other things or , so I thought lol. I still had a number of friends with rigs and kept and interest with a receiver at home, listening to something.

2 years ago, I started to listen to 11Meters on the AOR receiver and couldnt resist getting a full kit back home again

However, I became board of pure SWL and got another rig Chrsitmas , 12 months ago and the shack has built up ever since, much to the dismay of the mrs lmao

The RotelRVC240 is still going strong and is like a little tank, having had the Mid band fitted, recently by cubwolf, I made a QSO as up to date as yesterday in Baveria.

Is it me or where things that where made years ago built to last, and built better ?

how did i get into radio..well if you want honesty i found cb a great way to chat and meet girls and hopefully get a shag...lol and with not wanting to brag it definitely worked from time to time eventually i found sideband formed my own dx group with some great mates and the rest is history ahhh the good old days still enjoying my radio and hopefully will expand to frontiers new with the m3

I started listening for all those wonderful place names that were on the old valve set / transistor radio dials as a kid.
I am still listening today.
By my late teens I was building kit & using ex military sets on Echo Charlie. By my early 20's I was still building TX's & using military rigs, but being better off I also ran amateur hf rigs as well.
I then got involved in Short Wave Free Radio for a few years, returned to listening & got a foundation licence a few years back.
I'm currently training for my advanced exam.