I started with amateur radio very early. In 1958, I enrolled in a course at the pioneer home in Tarnovo to study radiotelegraphy. During our training, we had the opportunity to visit the pioneer radio station LZ2KBS and see how shortwave radio connections are established. This interested me a lot, even though at that time they only worked on telegraphy. The radio station had a low power of 25 watts and at that time radio connections could only be made within Bulgaria. From then on, I decided to continue my hobby with amateur radio and later enrolled in the radio club in Tarnovo. At that time, the head was Kiril Nestorov (by Kircho). There I continued to practice and later passed the exam for amateur radio class “C”. From then on, I was already allowed to work at the radio station LZ2KAC, where I went every day to make radio connections. I have also sat up all night, together with other members, to make radio contacts and participate in competitions. At that time, due to our great interest, the radio station worked almost continuously and we made a very large number of radio contacts. In 1965, I passed the exam for a radio amateur class “B” and in 1972, class “A”.
In the same year, 1965, I participated together with two other radio amateurs, Nik Pisarov (LZ2JF) and Angel Lichev (LZ2UG), in a republican championship for establishing radio contacts by radiotelegraphy. At this championship we won first place in Bulgaria with LZ2KBA and according to the competition regulations, the three of us received the title of “MASTER OF RADIO AMATEUR SPORT”.
After completing my high school education in 1962, like everyone else at the time, I had to go to the barracks. I was assigned to the city of Kardzhali in a communications platoon. From the very beginning, the platoon commander, after checking me as a radio operator, assigned me the task of training young and old soldiers in radio telegraphy, in addition, I had to start working at the radio station and maintain radio contact with the division in Haskovo. After I returned from the barracks in 1964, I started working at the radio factory in Veliko Tarnovo and it was completely clear to me that radio engineering would be my profession in life. A year later, I enrolled to study radio engineering at the V. Lomonosov Technical School in G. Oryahovitsa. After completing my radio engineering education in 1968, I was entrusted with training future workers for the radio factory in Veliko Tarnovo in the radio club. In the meantime, I received a permit to build a radio station and in 1971 I started building a transceiver in my spare time at the radio club, which lasted until 1972. At this point I must say that I was given a small financial assistance from the radio club for the construction of my transceiver. At the same time I married a German citizen and had to leave to live permanently in Germany (at that time it was the GDR). In the summer of 1972 my transceiver was exhibited at TNTM in Plovdiv where it was awarded and I received a Soviet watch and a diploma as a prize. This was the third transceiver made in Bulgaria. The first transceiver in Bulgaria was made at that time by Kiril Drundarov (LZ2ZK) also from the radio club in Veliko Tarnovo. The second transceiver was made at the same time in Kazanlak by Nikolay S. Pasturmov (LZ1YI) and was also presented at TNTM.
In 1972, we built a small house in the “Kartala” area to “move” the radio station during competitions. Later, I left in early December with my transceiver for the GDR and after great difficulties and detention at the border for Romania, which is why I arrived one day late in Leipzig, much to the disappointment and worries of my wife in Germany. Later I received in the GDR, then my first German initial DM9BJM, and after the official change of all initials I received the second initial Y29JM with which I worked until 1988 from Leipzig. In 1973 I presented my transceiver at the radio amateur meeting of all radio amateurs from the GDR in Leipzig and then my transceiver was awarded a diploma for the second time and printed in the German magazine Funkamateur 1974.
In Germany, this transceiver was ranked fourth out of all German exhibits, for me it was a big award. Of course I also received a German diploma (GDR) which unfortunately I no longer have. In the summer of 1988, I moved with my whole family to West Germany – Bavaria, and my transceiver had to stay in Leipzig. A move out of the GDR was absolutely impossible. And so I parted with my transceiver, which I had been building for almost a year in Veliko Tarnovo. After we settled in Nuremberg later, I received a new initial DJ0GB, which I still use today. All this was very difficult at that time, given the political conditions at that time. In the GDR I worked as an electrical engineer at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig and later as a tour guide-translator in Russian with Soviet groups who came to the GDR on excursions. This job was very interesting and I worked there for exactly 10 years until “perestroika” came, and then I started working in the computer industry as a maintenance technician for a computing station in a company in Leipzig until 1988.
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