My first Tx, QRP, at late primary school age, was on medium wave, 255 metres, inspired by Radio Free London's amazing but all too brief special broadcasts on that channel (sounded like real offshore stations, that I now sorely missed) and enabled by a Hartley oscillator circuit (gleaned from a Practical Wireless article). Construction involved transistors, a toilet roll tube, enamelled copper wire from an old transformer, other components repurposed from old jumble sale radios and TVs. No record deck etc., so instead, between tracks, I searched furiously and desperately around the radio bands (LW, MW, SW) for any music I liked, using "sixth sense" for song-endings.

A couple of years later, with a far more powerful evolved transmitter (with "Vim-Tin coils!) and antenna, incensed by the Gov. jamming of RNI, I decided to follow their example — by jamming BBC Radio One. Result: my mum (unaware, being a Radio 2 on LW listener) became accosted and chastised by a string of angry mums and neighbours - so crossly made me stop it!. *However*, to our mutual surprise and delight, a week or two later, she received a succession of requests for me to perform *paid* radio maintenance and repair jobs! Further proof of the "No Such Thing as Bad Publicity" principle. Following that, my normal broadcasts (not jamming!) resumed.

There was only one (attempted) raid, while alone in the house, mid-broadcast, one (early/mid 1970s) Saturday-shopping afternoon. From my vantage window - to my shock and almost disbelief - I noticed a big yellow "Post Office Telephones" van park-up at our road-entrance, from which two big guys then emerged and solidly approached on foot, one holding and using what was likely a field strength meter. They angrily walked up our short driveway and began heavily pounding on our front door. However, matching their entire approach, I'd progressively reduced the RF power to mere milliwatts, hoping to seed doubts that they'd got the right location (though likely some neighbour had reported it), or that they would at least consider me "not worth the trouble". Who knows - the latter may have helped.

Regardless, following a few minutes of their fruitless heavy thumping and threateningly growl-shouted "Open up!" (etc.) demands, they gave up and left. Leaving me (some "safe" time later) to check for any visible front-door damage (happily none that my dad would notice!) and to reassemble my transmitter — which had "dissolved" into a mere pile of components (my "Plan B"). It was particularly quick and easy disassemble because its various wires and leads were merely twisted together — because my dad wouldn't allow me to solder anything. I kept quiet about this scary experience of course!