In article ,
wrote:
From as far back as I can remember, I was interested in technology -
how things worked and what they could do. The kind of kid who's always
asking questions, taking things apart and putting them together, etc.
I found electricity particularly interesting.

Same here.

Nobody in my family was a ham, nor were any of my neighbors. None of

I had an uncle living some distance away, who sent me an old ARRL
Handbook that I loved to flip through, more looking at the pictures
than reading the text, thinking how neat it was to be able to build
stuff like that. Also there was long ago a radio section in Popular
Mechanics with construction articles. And the days when just about
every family had a radio receiver that would get shortwave as well
as broadcast band.

What attracted me was the idea of building my own radio station and
using it to communicate with like-minded folks all over the world.
That the results were random and unpredictable only added to the
attraction. I didn't think radio was "magic" or "mysterious", just a
lot of fun.

I guess I was that way too - it's only fairly recently that I have
come to realize it is almost magic that you put a few watts of RF
into an antenna, and the energy is radiated out into space, and
induces a tiny signal in every conductor it passes, and if that
conductor is an antenna then the tiny signal is enough to amplify
and detect and use for communication.

I know another thing that pushed me along was RTTY - I had always
been fascinated by Teletype machines, and when I learned that hams
could have them and use them to communicate I was really excited.
Without that extra push I might have delayed getting a ham license,
or maybe just continued as an electronics experimenter and SWL.

Jim, W6JVE