mashoo - radio
introduction

i first became interested in radio communication in the late 1980s, when i would tune around the shortwave radio of my sharp cassette deck; in those days, it was `radio moscow', not `the voice of russia'; here is an audio clip of a typical scan; i later used a selena vega 215;

in the autumn of 1989, i joined the signals section of my school ccf (combined cadet force); a year later, i became second in charge and was bitten by radio in a very real way; not knowing how the hf set worked, i plugged a counterpoise into the antenna socket and, as i was laying it out, a boy called prodip pressed the transmit button; the end of one of the legs gave me a painful rf burn which smelled of a lit match for weeks; not long after that, i was active on hf and participating in my first radio competition on the acf/ccf national radio network (nrn);

more competitions followed, including one victory, before i left school in 1993; i had learned some knots, antenna theory and morse code (i had not learned it well, sending before i could receive); but the main thing i had learned was the mysterious thrill of throwing a wire into a tree and tuning in to the universe, not knowing what signal would come through next;

i passed the rae (radio amateurs examination) with a lad called hywel rees in the summer of 1994; that autumn, i returned to school to use the hf set for my first weekend of licensed amateur activity; a year later, i bought an icom ic-706;

i still love hf radio at its simplest and most natural, as i love the music of bartók