What year and why did you get into the Radio Hobby?

1976. High School Friends were getting into to it and it seemed like interesting fun. First Radio was a JC Penny Pinto, 23ch, bought used from a local. Had a Modulation Light on the front that would fire when talking. Punky little 5A power supply and a new Hy Gain 5/8 Penetrator Ground Plane on the roof. A new D104 TUG8 from a local CB shop for $35. Put a 102" whip on the back bumper of dad's station wagon and would move the radio out there on the times that I had the car for my purposes. Was in the suburbs of a big city so a shitton of people were on the radio experiencing the Big CB Radio Boom of the mid 70's both before and following the Smokey & The Bandit Movie which wasn't until '77. Every single channel had a group on it plus different groups on the same channels separated by xx miles.
Would love to go back there with a couple of Stryker 955's and Texas Star 500's.
It was also back when the FCC was enforcing the rules and they had a highly effective Monitoring Station on the other side of this big city. Lot's of busts happened ..... you could only get away with just so much. Good Times

It was 1976. I was in the 7th grade and begging for a CB radio as "everyone who was anyone" had one. Dad brought me home a 3 channel Midland. Nothing but a volume control, a squelch and a 3 position channel switch with a mobile antenna mounted on the gutter. Wasn't much but I was able to talk to my friends in the neighborhood. Needless to say I was hooked. Within a month or two I had saved up enough allowance dollars to buy a 23 channel Sears Roadtalker and my dad bought me a 5/8 wave ground plane. Things got way more interesting then. Became a member of one of the many cb clubs and started going to Jamborees and meeting more "addicts" A year rolled by and I managed to convince my Dad to let me "upgrade' my station. Little did he know I would be starring on his televison. LOL I had saved up allowance and yard mowing money to buy a new Lafayette Telsat SSB-80, a D-104 and a Super Scout amp. I use to stay up super late on Friday and Saturday nights to make those distant contacts. At 14 years old I thought I was Bad A$$. To be honest I put my neighborhood freinds to shame with that setup. Joined a Sideband club and stayed active until the early 90s.

Here's a picture of my "little" setup from around 1977

I started around 1978 (I was 6 years old) when my older cousin gave me his old Space Patrol walkie talkies. I was fascinated by the insides of the radios and that the speaker was also the microphone. And all those adjustments that looked like they were meant for a screwdriver.... Funny, those adjustments didn't seem to do anything on my end while I was talking. It was normal to hear cbers , and my sister and I sure made them mad when we were practicing our cuss words. And our mom was not impressed when she heard us on the TV either. One day, some guy was asking us to please stop. I asked him what channel we were on.

He said "All Of Them!!"...

Moleculo said:

Like the title says, what year and why did you get into the Radio Hobby?


Note: If you're replying to this thread, you could win a brand new radio! Check this link to find out how!

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I would say, it was 1969, I was in 3rd grade, when a classmate brought a pair of walkie talkies to school and I made a crystal set, from the cub scouts handbook. Then got the 10 in 1 kit and P-Box SW receiver kit from Allied Radio Shack. In 1971, the librarian in my school, who was ham, prepped a group of kids after class for the Novice Morse and written exams. I already had an Archer Space Patrol base station and was hopelessly hooked on radio for a few years by then.

1973 or 74. Thanks to Convoy and Smoky and the Bandit, everyone I knew had a radio. I don't remember the make/model after all this time. Now, surrounded by radios and know of 3 techs ( J4, Hillbilly and obviously Freebird ) in the area, which is why I came on here to begin with. Was googling, trying to find out if a rumor I heard about a tech retiring was true. Can't confirm, but it seems a lot of this chat is one sided with people blasting other techs. Those 3 mentioned about, don't. They all have decades of experience.

1972. I was 7 years old and was fascinated by my Moms kitchen table radio. I was convinced there were tiny people in there singing and talking; so one day while Mom was busy with laundry I snuck some tools from Dads workshop and took the back off the radio.. No tiny people were in there but lots of other interesting looking stuff was! I was fascinated! To his credit my Dad saw my interest and I got me a shortwave receiver kit for Xmas......a Codar Multiband-6 with plug in coils. At the age of 10 a used Yaesu FRG-7 came up for sale and I saved up a summers worth of newspaper route money to buy it.

I got into CB around 1980 when I was in grade 10. My best friend lived in a rural area about five miles from town and they were on a party line phone system.. His neighbors would tie up the line all evening so me and friend ponied up and bought a couple used 23 channel radios (they were cheap as everyone had just switched to 40 channels the previous year). That way we could yap all night without using the party line phone. We also immediately made about 30 new friends each....folks we met on the radio!

I graduated to SSB in 1986 and got into freeband around 1988 or so. Here I am still at it after all these years!

At the ripe age of 12, now 61 years back, i build tube FM transmitters and ran my illegal FM station...
Then followed the 6 and 23 channel AM CB radio's and "export" multi mode CB radio's including repairing stuff here expanding bands but mostly repairing the "golden screwdrivered " sets.....


In 1977 i got licensed, spring exam, never looked back, mostly building my own stuff because i wasn't bloody rich and it was fun to make your own stuff..
Now at 73 years young, skills deteriorate, in my young years parts were big and clumsy, now we get old we need a bloody microscope to find the parts back...
Yes i do some SMD stuff, stop when my eyes hurt...lol...
Good pension, low fixed costs, so now i can buy what i want to compensate.
Have fun on the band(s)

1964 for me. My older brother got into it with an Winegard 1/2 wave ground plane and an RCA Mark VII radio. He was one of the first 5 people in the city to be on the air. Naturally, I began talking to his friends when he was not home. If I remember correctly, the radio had 4 channels, but a tunable receive for 23.

1976; I remember the year because of all the centennial events like the tall ships in Newport Rhode Island.
That summer my grandfather helped me build a "black box" that had a small door on the top.
I put an AM/FM radio inside and then for school show&tell tuned the AM radio away from any stations. We went outside I remember and I explained that the sound was coming from the sun.
I think the next year I got a CB radio and started taking stuff apart, hung out at Radio Shack etc.
In 2019 I retired after a career in computers and electronics and have a substantial radio station with my wife, N5ZXO.

I got into radio in 1976, and I was 12 at the time. My Dad bought a Johnson 123SJ with the "cool" LED S Meter, and a mirror mount antenna for his '72 Chevy Cheyenne pickup. His call sign was KNH-5711, and I spent most of the time asking for a radio check and a 10-36. Once I got over the newbie jitters, my friends and I used to do our homework over the air after school on channel 1.

Later on, my Dad got a Browning Brownie and a Radio Shack magnet mount antenna back from my Grandpa, since he didn't like talking on the CB. Dad gave me that radio, and I hooked it up in my bedroom with an old battery, and set up the antenna on a pizza pan and painters easel in the yard by my room. I later bought a Radio Shack 1/4 wave antenna for about 12 bucks with my graduation money from the 8th grade. I made a lot of friends on channel 15, and when my birthday came around when I turned 14 (I was a year younger than my classmates since I started school in Germany), my Dad let me pick out a radio. Since the club was going to move to channel 33 under the new 40 channel allocation. I wanted to get sideband, but Dad set a price limit, and if I got an SSB rig, I could only afford a 23 channel. I decided on a Robyn T240D tube type AM rig so I could get on the new club home channel.

My Mom and Dad threw a big party for me and invited all the local folks from our club. We had about 40 or 50 folks show up! The locals had made me an offer to put up a ground plane antenna with push-up pole if I came up with half the money, so I was the new owner of a 40 foot pole and Taylor "Grand Slammer" .64 wave ground plane. To top it all off, my birthday is 5 days before Christmas, and while I couldn't have been happier, I got a new D104 mic on Christmas morning! As "The Town Clown", I had quite the setup, and spent many hours having fun talking with people all over the place.

Over the years, I've lost the pictures we had from the party, but I will always remember all the fun I had during those times.

I was a teenager in the mid 70's and like many I was knee deep in the CB radio craze. My dad applied for a license (KZX9251). I think it costs $20.

My Dad (sk), was WA9DGH in the 1960's. He was off the air since we moved house in 1971 and was an enthusiastic accomplice in my new hobby.

My dad and I put up 60ft tower (I think that was the max legal height for CB antennas at the time) and a Avanti Starduster. A few months later an Antenna Specialists Super Scanner was installed. This was 3 vertical phased dipoles that gave some directivity and rejection (very little of both). Then we put up an Avanti PDL II and a rotator. Then were able to use "The Flat" side.

I was active for a couple of years then cars and girls became more interesting. My dad carried on and amassed a big collection of radios. His radios were in my bedroom. He told my mother they were mine!

A few decades later I found out that the code requirement was dropped to get an Amatuer radio license. So in August 2008 I passed the Tech test and was assigned KB3ROB. Passed my General in October 2008 and changed my call to K3GMT. In February 2009 I passed my Extra Exam then changed my call to NB3R in March 2011.

I was hooked on working DX. Trying to work a rare one on SSB can be very difficult. I learned CW and it became easier. Especially with an Extra license. I can work the very bottom of each band where many of the rare ones are.

I'm what the old geezers call a NO CODE ham. I didn't have to pass the CW test to get my license. I have over 24,000 CW QSOs in my log. I've have confirmed 282 DXCC on CW and have 308 DXCC mixed.

I work DX every day. The FT modes make it very easy to do. I still prefer a CW QSO but I take what I can get.

My dad was afflicted with dementia by the time I started Amatuer radio. I know he would be pleased that I got my ticket.

1974
My cousin had a Chrome 23 ch Courier 23+ and a Mighty Mag base antenna. We had a blast with that radio.

Moleculo said:

Like the title says, what year and why did you get into the Radio Hobby?


Note: If you're replying to this thread, you could win a brand new radio! Check this link to find out how!

Click to expand...

1968 (age 12). I started out talking to a friend of mine when I lived in Groton CT. His house was behind ours and set up our analog system (2 coffee cans and a whole bunch of string). We moved to Enfield CT the next year (1967) and my dad bought a simple shortwave radio kit (nothing big, maybe 2 tubes - and no case). He taught me how to solder correctly and follow a schematic (and instructions), so every night when he came home from work, I'd get him to look at what I'd done during the day. Once we set it up and added a wire antenna I found that I'd hear a lot of CB talking when I had the dial up near 30MHz and even down below 15MHz (it wasn't the best for rejection). I learned soon after that I was picking up strong, nearby stations. My dad recognized the loudest (the "Bald Eagle") who was security for the local lumber yard that was about 100ft from our house. The Bald Eagle lived in a house provided by the lumber yard approximately 300ft from our house, and another guy "The Joker" who was about 400' from out house. He let his daughter talk on the radio and recognized her voice as being in the same grade as mine.

So I started begging for a walkie-talkie (Archer Space Patrol) but my dad bought a set of Juliette handhelds. The were actually better (2 channels) but didn't have the cool factor that the Space Patrols had. So I spent more time listening. It didn't matter what channel the others were on - my walkie-talkie heard all of 'em as clear as someone on the actual channel I was listening to. During summer break I began my campaign to get a real CB by dropping some heavy handed hints ("Dad, this would be my greatest Christmas gift ever").

School started after labor day and I stepped up the hints and direct requests. They had an answer for me this time: If I got a good report card before Christmas they would buy me a radio. The report card before Christmas wasn't to good, so my mom said that the radio was scratched off the list. What a bummer....

Christmas day came and after all the presents were opened I was kinda testy because there wasn't a CB radio in any of them. After the obligatory Christmas pictured had been taken I headed up stairs to my bedroom. Now we get into "A Christmas Story" mode. My mom said to my dad, "hey! what's that behind the tree, sticking out from behind the couch?" my dad said he didn't know but he'd take a look. "It's a present with a tag which has Brian's name on it". I was on the landing between the first set of stairs and the second set when I heard that, and came back down, two steps at a time.

My dad handed me the box, which was pretty heavy, and even though my heart was beating rapidly I was determined not to give them the satisfaction of a smile. When I opened it the box I found a used Lafayette Comstat 23 with the original hand mic. I recognized it immediately as being the Joker's radio as he let me come over after school with some friends from school, and even let us talk on it. So I knew every scratch/blemish his radio had. Dad told me he was selling it for a good price because he wanted to buy a Tram base station (either the Titan or Titan II), and he gave my dad a good price for it.

So I took the radio upstairs to my bedroom, now called "my shack" and asked my dad about coax and some sort of antenna. He took me to the garage and showed me a brand new Antenna Specialist ground plane and 50' of RG8 coax. When we get some better weather we can set it up, he said, adding the fact that until he received his license I couldn't talk on it anyway. Towards the end of January the license (KDU-5960) arrived, along with a week of warmer weather and we put the antenna up on the 3rd story of the house, and ran the coax into my bedr...er shack.

In the next 4 years he became my banker and helped me buy my first sideband radio, Midland's 13-880b. I worked a variety of chores, like snow shoveling for the neighbors to help pay him back. When 1974 came around, we'd assembled a group of six other teens with sideband radios, virtually stopped using AM, and it was one of the best times of my life.

Since I got my first ever 6 channel Realistic mobile in the early 70's. Been collecting cb radios ever since. But nowadays concentrating on just the higher end cb base stations. Wish more people would start, only 2 of us local so far... I got into cb radios because back the day it was cool to talk to your friends without using a landline. Back in the day my Call Sign was KDM-4912.

1975 (high-school). Best buddy's Mom was a Ham. I was so intrigued with the gear and her DX log. It just amazed me how she could talk around the world from her den. The gear was just so handsome. Hooked ever since.