I don’t know how the hell I got out of this hobby and stayed out for damn near 30 years. I passed my first license exam at 15 years old and had passed the exam a commercial radio-telephone/telegraph license before I was out of high school.
[caption id="attachment_111" align="aligncenter" width="820"]
A pair of 3-500z vacuum tubes inside my linear amplifier. These tubes are capable of putting out 1.5 kilowatts of RF power – the legal limit in the ham bands.[/caption]
Like everything, other stuff became more interesting and I let the hobby fall to the wayside. I didn’t even keep my licenses current and had to re-take all of the exams again in 2010 when I decided to get back into the hobby.
So why the sudden renewed interest? I guess standing out on 7 acres of property with room to put up some serious “big boy” antennas had a little to do with it. Reading about the emerging technology of software defined radio was another. Whatever it was, I really love being on the air and especially pounding out CW.