1975 when I was 15 years old
Receiver: Hallicrafters S-40B my neighbor dug out of his garage for me. (freebie)
Transmitter: 6AQ5 single tube transmitter built from an article from (?) Popular Electronics Magazine (actually, I think it was a different mag, but can't think of it) Similar to this one but mine had a built in power supply (probably all of 6 parts) and Pop (who was an electrician) took me to Lafayette Electronics to buy the parts we didn't have on hand from stripping old radios apart:
6AQ5 CW transmitter for 40 meters
All of 7 watts output to a "dipole", but one side was probably 45 feet long, and the other side 15 feet (SWR? What's that?) but the rig loaded into it fed with 20 feet of "Coloraxial" TV feed line, and I worked 14 states with one crystal (7114khz). Eventually, I got a second crystal 7121khz and I was DX KING! Oh, I had the shortwave broadcast schedules of any station that transmitted on 7110 and 7115 memorized so as soon as they signed off the air, BANG I was there calling CQ.
There's more to the story than that, but I'm keeping my mouth shut for another 10 years before telling any more.
That's it. J-38 straight key running all CW and had a BLAST.
CQ CQ CQ DE WN9UAI WN9UAI K
Edit: It was Elementary Electronics