I have been a radio amateur since 1983 when I first passed the old city and guilds 765 to earn my B licence of G6YZI. I later worked at learning morse code and TBH I found it quite hard, back in the day you needed to learn up to 12 WPM and have a test at a coastguard station. I took my test at North Forelands, Fred G4ZGO kindly drove me there for the test, I was so bloody nervous even as a non smoker I had a drag on a cigarette to calm my nerves. You did not get to know on test day if you had passed, can you imagine that? do a driving test and wait for the results. Well you can imagine my shock and excitement when the letter eventually came through the letter box and I had passed.
When I first received my Class A licence I didn’t really do much HF work, I lived in an upstairs house a bit like an apartment but with two floors. I had a Yaesu FT101 but whenever I keyed up all the televisions in the block would be interfered with. I tried to get the council to do something about the 60s TV Pre-amp on the communal aerial that was the cause of it, but obviously got nowhere. Due to operating restrictions and bringing a family up amateur radio took a back seat, ironicaly the best years when I was in a house with big garden I didn’t play radio.
Fast forward until today and once again I am in a flat / apartment, kids all grown up but sadly lost my wife. On the bright side radio is not too bad, I can fit a 20M folded dipole in the loft, I have a Yaseu FT710AES so I am able to run my favourite mode in contests which is RTTY. I’m not that chatty, so digital suits me fine a bit of FT8 here and there and mostly listening