My first handheld radio...

This is an ex-police Stornophone 500 (fans of early episodes of The Bill might recognise this - Reg Hollis and Tony Stamp anyone?) .  My physics teacher at school ran the school radio club and had what we would now call a "side hustle" converting these for the 2m Amateur band after the police abandoned them.  I was the fortunate recipient of one in exchange for a nominal fee...

Here follows more geekery...

It has three channels, selectable with the dial on the front.  If you want to change channels those switch positions select, you have to replace the Receive and Transmit crystal for those channels internally (and tweak some tuning).

It looks pretty ropey compared with its newer siblings, but it did a good job of getting me on the air while out and about as a 14 year old.

That reminds me that discovering the hobby was a complete co-incidence.  There was an elderly couple at the end of our street who we would occasionally see about when playing out on our bikes.  At some point the lady was widowed, and as she didn't drive she'd occasionally be on the same bus as I got home from school with her shopping, and when that happened I helped her carry her things home.

One day I must have mentioned my interest in electronics and radios and suchlike, and she explained in vague terms that her husband used to be interested in radio (clearly not an interest she shared).  She had some things of his in the garage, and would I like them, as they were just gathering dust.

I got a few bits and pieces from there, including a power supply he must have built himself (which I still have and still works, although it's not in regular use) and a 2m base station radio.  I didn't really know what it was, but I got interested in listening to local traffic, and that inspired me to get my license so I could operate it too.  

I feel terrible that I've forgotten the name of that generous lady, and her husband, but I remember their faces and her generosity.

I've not kept all the equipment I had then - at some point I donated some of the more respectable items to a local radio club as they were once again gathering dust, but as this photo shows I still have a few bits and pieces of kit that either have sentimental value or which were "homebrew" and therefore not of much interest to anyone else.

It's nice having manufactured equipment that just works and has lots of clever features, but I've always got great enjoyment from building and experimenting with things.  At the moment it's antennas that have my interest.  I'm hatching a plan to build a dual band J-pole tuned for UK band centres (most of the ones available to buy are tuned for the USA where the bands are a little different, so don't perform that well on UK frequencies) and the experiments with HF antennas have already started...