How I Got Into Ham Radio

At the age of 6, my aunt asked me if I wanted to stay at her home over one weekend, which I gladly accepted.

On that Sunday noon, while she was preparing lunch, my uncle and I were sitting in the kitchen. My uncle didn’t have a clue what to do with me, so he took me to his big old radio and introduced me to the world of shortwave reception.

His radio was capable of receiving different amateur radio bands, so he tuned into the start of one band where CW is the main mode.

Me being a 6-year old boy, this immediately caught my interest, and he explained to me what I was listening to.

The next thing we did: we went into the room where my uncle would tinker around, and he soldered together a small board which would create a sine wave tone as long as a button was keyed down. A 9V block was attached to the board using simple wire going through the holes of the board, and the speaker stuck to that battery with the magnet on its back. Simple and efficient.

He then wrote down the morse code alphabet onto a small piece of paper, so I could practise at home.

This moment sparked my interest in electronics and (amateur) radio.

The next year, I got a “Schuco Electronic First Contact” kit for Christmas which teaches kids the world of electronics. The most advanced project in that box was a medium wave receiver. I spent hours and days with that set.