[BC] What brought me into radio

[Mike Vanhooser novaelec@sbcglobal.net.INVALID]

When I was about 5 or 6 I discovered my grandfather's old RCA shortwave, and was fascinated at the sounds I heard coming out of it.  Lots of strange languages from around the world, fortunately many were in English, but talking about things on the other side of the world.  My biggest curiosity was the airplanes, which there were several across the bands. Obviously they were airplanes, because you could hear the sound of the engines, but only the sound of the engines.  I never heard the pilots say anything (think about it).

For my seventh birthday my parents got me a Motorola 56B1 "portable" radio, with the Roto-Tenna handle, and I would go to sleep listening to some station somewhere, whatever the skip dragged in.  Then one night, after my parents were asleep, I was tuning through the dial and went up to the high end, where all the stations were crammed together.  All of a sudden it almost exploded with this huge signal, blasting hard rock and roll.  When the song ended I heard the roughest, wildest voice screaming through the speaker, and then this howl... "You're listening to the Wolfman on XERF..." and I was ruined for life.  The first words in Spanish I ever learned were "Transmitido Dos Ciento Cinquenta Mil Wattes, XERF, Ciudad Acuna, Coahila, Mexico".  My second grade teacher asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I answered either a scientist or a disk jockey (didn't yet know what an engineer was).  I was hooked on radio, and a couple years later got my first crystal kit, which was a breeze to assemble, and it worked.  Fast forward to 14, my parents ship me off to military school to hopefully straighten me out (didn't work, they threw me back).  My roommate was another electronics nerd, and we built a 10 watt AM transmitter and broadcast our pirate station all over the south side of Kerrville.  Both of us have been stuck in radio ever since (he's also on this list, good luck with your guesses).  That led into ham radio, a First Phone, and it was all over then.  I made a couple escapes, but just when you think you're out, they pull you back in.

Some of the people really drive me over the edge, but there's not another job I would rather have.