My pre-Amateur Radio History

Back in the late 1960's or early 1970's my grandad gave me a MW/LW radio. I listened to the commercial stations, but when I tuned away to the emptier parts of the radio's bands I heard scratchy voices. I asked what they were and someone told me about radio hams. I was probably listening to top band ragchews.

Having gained an interest in listening I bought a small SW radio with plug in coils (Codar?) to cover the various bands. This opened up the SW broadcast bands and with a bit of BFO tweaking I could listen to amateurs from around the world too, although only the strongest stations so I wasn't really listening to the whole world.

When I could afford a little more money, I upgraded to a Trio JR310 receiver (https://www.rigpix.com/kenwood/jr310.htm). This really opened up the amateur bands for me and I spent many a long night huddled up with the radio logging stations near and far. I joined the RSGB as a listener (RS-station) some time around 1977.

During an industrial 'year out' from university in 1980/81 I was able to complete my RAE studies at Grimsby Technical College and passed it first time. It helped that from 1979 the RAE was based on multiple-choice questions ;-)

And so in the summer of 1981 I became licensed as G6FCI, which has been my callsign ever since.