Even though I own state of the art commercial equipment covering all modes and all bands, my favourite band is and has been for the last 15 years 4 metres. I have owned many different items of 4M kit and if I see any at a rally I normally can't stop myself even today.
I started on the band in 1990 as a newcomer to the hobby with a PYE Westminster bought for £15.00 from Anchor Surplus of Nottingham., Several hours of pain staking alignment with over the air help on 2M from Phil G8HDS and Andy G1HBE to whom I remain eternally grateful for their help during those early few month's and I was QRV on 4M with around 10 watts to a home brew delta loop in the loft , rock bound on 70.450 but it didn't really matter back then, everybody just piled on 450 for a NET every night , no point calling CQ because we were already there HI !
Things have moved on a bit since those days and a couple of more Westminsters , a brief AM excursion on 70.260 with a PYE Reporter and a PYE Europa , A Tait T199 , AKD4001 I end up with my current set up.
In the Shack is
ASCOM SE550 to a homebrew delta loop in the loft. This puts out 25W and has a very sensitive receiver these were selling on the internet in the hundreds after being released by the utilities companies 2/3 years ago. The software conversion most commonly in use is the PA4DEN software
I also own an orginal AKD4001 which i bought when there was only G and Gibralter on the 4M Band
With the arrival of lots of synthersized Ascoms and Philips/Simoco sets on the market and the licencing of our European friends 4M hopefully is set for interesting times. Catch you on the band !
