During our COVID "lockdown" period here last year a few of us on an AR forum decided to write about our start in electronics, AR etc.
Below is an extract from mine.
When I was 14 I was given a transistor portable for my birthday,. It did not have a telescopic antenna, so to improve reception I fitted one with a wire loop around the internal ferrite rod. Reception was improved further when I fitted a socket to the radio and connected an external long wire antenna outside. I then spent many hours each night tuning in AM broadcast stations around the country.
Then one night I decided to tune the dial to the highest frequency, and log stations while tuning down. The dial had about 5° of overshoot past the horizontal maximum mark, and I had already established that hard against the stop was around 2300kHz because I’d heard boats in the local sea rescue squadron testing on weekends.
I started tuning down and almost immediately came across someone talking about radio gear, and he did not sound like a broadcast station announcer. He finished talking and someone else came up and the conversation went back and forth.
I’d discovered 160 meters AM, and I never bothered with broadcast band AM stations again.
