[Elecraft] OT: 50 years

[Ian Stirling]

  I became interested in Amateur Radio, 1975 when a friend
showed me his single transistor, FM 'transmitter'. Later
I learned it was just an unbuffered Colpitts oscillator,
about five turns of copper in the coil and a something
picofarad capacitor and the 300 ohm twin aerial as part of
the tuned circuit, modulated by a tape deck line output on
the base of the BD235 transistor.

  When I discovered Amateur Radio, the literature of the day
said that KA+3 callsigns were American military stationed in
Japan.  Earning my G4ICV in 1979, I learned quickly that
those KA callsigns, most of them, were novices in the
21.1 to 21.2 MHz band.

  I have 'Worked All States' CW as G4ICV, and probably half
of my QSL cards are from novices in that segment - a few of
them joyously declaring in CW and on the cards that I was
their first DX.
 What a forlorn band that is now.

Ian, G4ICV (1979), AB2GR (1999), K2 #4962 (2005)
relative rookie at just 27 years as a Radio Amateur.
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