The Early Years

My first shack contained no more than a Lowe HF-225 receiver loaned to me by my local club at the time, the Telford and District Amateur Radio Club (T&DARC). This was used to listen in on the bands before I was licensed (subsequently replaced by an old Yaesu FRG-7). In anticipation of getting my own callsign I had constructed a simple 10m dipole that I used for listening to both amateur and broadcast stations. I was ready to make some contacts. 

Having got my license early in 1991 I was kindly loaned a Kenwood TS-140 transceiver by T&DARC, a simple but perfectly capable HF radio. I had a blast on 10m with the low dipole strung out the shack window attached to the garden fence. I remember conditions back then being nothing less than amazing and this simple setup worked the world.

Lowe HF-225	Kenwood TS-140

Unfortunately the logbook for that period didn't survive a succession of house moves, being QRT for 10+ years and a divorce but as luck would have it I do have a few QSL cards from that period confirming some nice DX contacts. It was also a nice surprise on signing up with eQSL on resuming the hobby in 2005 to find a clutch of eQSL confirmations waiting there for me!

A rig of my own...or two...

For reasons that escape me, not long after getting my license I decided to buy an old TS-510 I'd seen advertised in RadCom. I travelled all the way to Lincoln to collect it in person and rushed it home to get on the bands with what I can only assume I thought at the time was a real radio. Bad move. It was a bit of a wrong 'un and although it was great on 40m for EU working it was a big ugly brute and it was down on power on all other bands (bearing in mind it was only a 5 band rig 80/40/20/15 & 10m). It was soon moved on.

Kenwood TS-440

Having been bitten once I was more inclined now to go with something I was a little more familiar with. One of the guys at the Telford club, Dave (G4EIX) had a TS-440 line-up in his shack and I really liked how the radio looked and played. Coincidentally I happened to be in the [since closed] Lowe Electronics store in Matlock around that time and I found a used TS-440 with matching power supply & speaker. That became my primary rig for the next few years and I remember it fondly as a great rig to use and, to my eyes, still a great looking radio.

Although Ive never have been much of a fan of 2m and higher around the time of the TS-440 being my HF radio I did buy a used FT-209R handie which was a nice solid radio. This was stolen and subsequently replaced with an FT-290 Mk1.

Ringing the changes

As much as I enjoyed the TS-440 I eventually sold it (the whole line-up) and got an Icom IC-738 - I still consider this to have been a swap of one good radio for another and with conditions still being pretty good I had a blast working the world on a long wire antenna from my shack in Rugby.

Icom IC-738

Over the next few years I tried a variety of different rigs including Alinco handies in the form of the DJ-580 and the wafer thin DJ-C1 and a Tokyo Hy-Power HT-110 10m portable rig. Around this time the main station radios were the TS-870 for HF and the FT-736R for VHF/UHF. Sadly both of these rigs were seriously under used in the period up to my leaving the hobby for some 11 years or so but both in their own right, great radios!

Kenwood TS-870S	Yaesu FT-736R

To this point, of all the radios owned & used, if I could have any one of them back in the shack it would be the TS-870 - a remarkable radio. Sadly though this and all the other gear was sold sometime in the mid 1990's and I was QRT for about 11 years until late 2005.