D Peter Maus wrote:

snip

So, my question....anyone else had similary exciting revelations
during the early days?


Not so much revelations as excitement of discovery:

1. an ongoing search for detector minerals such as galena ore from
rock shops; one sample mounted in a pipe and tuned with a hat pin
produced loud audio in a speaker connected through a hi-Z transformer
-- the front end was a 365 pf air variable in parallel with a
handwound coil and the antenna was a longwire draped around the
room.

2. a QRP QSO on CB channel 7 using a Knight-Kit superregen walkie-talkie
(perhaps 50 mw power input) between my MN QTH and TN.

3. VHF TV summertime skip -- we were 70 miles from the metro stations,
so had a 50 ft. tilt-over tower with a log-periodic on a rotator
(not a color version either), and the most fun was finding a clear
signal from halfway across the continent, often the southeast
(FL, GA usually). I still have dreams in which I am watching
a strange program from some distant market. I wonder what ATSC
skip will be like I suppose the next challenge will be grabbing
low power translator analog TV DX until that disappears too.

4. Handling net traffic during the Alaskan earthquake (as a kid that was
a solemn privilege).

5. Detecting emissions from Jupiter during a noise peak in the 60's
using some primitive gear on six meters.

6. Working Easter Island on six meters with about 50W power input.

7. Sounds of unknown utility transmissions burned into my brain, no
longer heard and still waiting to be identified.

....

Michael