My fascination with wireless communications started over 60 years ago - experimenting with a "crystal" receiver. That led to AM Broadcast Band DXing, SWLing, TV DXing and then CB radio. I picked up a "Technician" ticket in 1968. Tag Heaberlin, W8ZMG, was my Elmer. He worked with me for months before he was able to pound 5 WPM of Morse Code through my thick skull. I upgraded to "General" and then to "Extra" after the code requirement was dropped. My code is still lousy. The magic band, 6 Meters, was my first love. I enjoyed a little VHF/UHF contesting success in the 1990s but my favorite part of the hobby has always been experimenting with antennas. If you ever have occasion to teach antenna theory, check out my "Crutches Antenna" story: https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/August2015_Fischer
14.300 is one of my favorite HF hangouts. I am now living in my first house without a tower since 1968. All my antennas are in the attic. They include a homebrew 6M, 2-element, folded Yagi on a rotor. I also trimmed down the lineup of radios when I moved here. Icom 706M2Gs in the shack and the mobile. Sold the SB-200 and Homebrew 3-500Z amplifiers.
I started building and operating MicroBITX transceivers in 2017. A photo of my first four builds is shown below. I'm now having fun operating "QRP" from home as well as from remote (mostly hunting & fishing) areas using dipole & end-fed half-wave antennas. Another picture shows my tailgate setup for checking out a uBITX station I built in an ammo case. You can see the transceiver, MFJ-16010 Tuner, 12A-Hr lead-acid battery and a 10W solar panel to keep the battery charged. I pronounced it "ready for the field" after working 4 states in about 45 minutes with a 32ft vertical mounted on the back of the pickup.
There's also a picture of my Daytona Beach condo station. In Jan-Feb-March 2023, I worked 25 states and 37 countries with the 10W uBITX shown in that picture and a 20M dipole strung up across the condo balcony.
My formal electronics education started during the Cold War, compliments of the National Defense Education Act. If you are interested in history, you might enjoy that story at http://www.fischertechnical.com/page/491199584 I'm a mostly-retired physicist & electrical engineer. Over the years, I worked for defense contractors, design-build electrical manufacturers, automated manufacturing plants, chemical plants and refineries. For 13 years, I was an itinerant college professor, instructing evening classes in Physics, Robotics and Solid-State Electronics at three colleges. I have also been running a part-time consulting business and researching "esoteric science" since 1979. Home QTH is rural West Virginia with my wife of 56+ years. We spend winters in Daytona Beach, FL.