I was issued the callsign G0KOM (Golf Zero Kilo Oscar Mike) at the later half of 1988, I had previously taken my RAE (Radio Amateurs Exam) and passed, I had applied and been allocated the Callsign of G7AMN, (just missed out on the last of the G1's), I immediately began to teach myself morse code with the help of some tapes from my works QTH at the time (RAF), I wasn't active at all with my VHF callsign except for some local chats on 2m FM with my newly acquired FT-290R MK1, I was itching to get onto HF after having my appetite wetted by 11m
I passed my morse test with relative flying colours at the first attempt in the middle of 1988, I had to drive to Suffolk police divisional headquarters in Ipswich to take my test, I think I was the only one as well, I was so unbelievably nervous, but the examiners put me at ease and it all seemed a little bit too easy, 12wpm seemed slow after all the practising I had done, anyway the pass slip arrives some weeks later and I had arrived (well nearly) in the seemingly impossible world of the Radio Ham
money was tight in those days, (well it still is now) but I had saved up enough to buy a Yaesu FT-757 GX HF transceiver, my pride and joy, (well I didn't actually, I had saved enough for the deposit, the rest was on HP)  it was a grey import without the CW filter but it was £200 cheaper than any other dealers at the time, I couldn't afford to buy a power supply to run my little baby so for my first months on the air would be powered by an old 12v Car battery which was trickled charged, I kept mostly to QRP levels 10watts for almost all of my operations to try and preserve the power of my 12v battery, I built a half wave aluminium dipole in the loft of my house, I erected a converted 1/2 wave CB vertical antenna outside and with the help of a local ham, George G4XSM who became a friend of mine he built a small transmatch atu for me with which I could install a homebrew G5RV fed with old 75ohm telephone cable which I had lying around, and that was it I had arrived in the big bad world of HF

looking back at my log book now, those were fantastic times, I worked almost entirely CW on 28mhz in fact I spent most of my time on 10m, I used 10 FM quite a lot as well, utilising the 10m vertical antenna which was ground mounted in the back garden, it worked great, as did the horizontal dipole I had in my loft, I think my greatest thrill was working my first VK with an indoor dipole and 10watts on the 4th December 1988, I worked VK6WT, David in Perth with my little station, I gave him a 529 and he gave me a 439, the contact lasted about 8 minutes and at the end of it you would think I had won the pools