This is my first QSL card. It bears a lot of battle scars from being tacked and taped to the wall.  However, I still have fond memories about this card. As a kid, I always had an interest in listening to the radio. Besides the local stations, I began to notice that there were stations in between.  Little did I know that that other people did this also as a hobby called DXing.

Well, my parents had this radio called a Grundig Satellite 2000 and I used to play around with it trying to figure out what all those strange stations were saying on the bands labeled SW. One day, I tuned to the 19 Meter Band and heard this exotic sounding music box tune being played over and over again with announcements in between. I heard an announcement in Japanese and then a man in English say “This is Radio Japan, the international broadcasting service of NHK in Tokyo.” Wow, what did I have here. Imagine a radio signal coming across the Pacific Ocean from Japan.  I listened further to the whole program and at the end , the announcer asked for reception reports for which they would send a QSL card for correct ones.  So, I did!

Well, after a few weeks, my mom told me I got a package from Japan. Wow, it came! I opened it up and found a program schedule, a Radio Japan Newspaper and the prized QSL card that you see above.  I was hooked and the rest is history.