In 1979, at just 14 years old, I walked into the "Nikola Tesla" Radio Club in Gevgelija for the very first time. Back then, technology felt like science fiction, and communication across distances was still a luxury for most.

In our town, even having a landline phone was rare. We had just two television channels—one broadcasting around ten hours a day, the other barely four. The FM radio dial? Silent. Not a single station. Most people tuned into medium wave broadcasts, struggling with weak and unstable signals. On a good day, you might pick up a dozen stations. At night, the airwaves came alive with hundreds, overlapping and fading in and out depending on atmospheric conditions.

And then there was the Radio Club—a whole different universe

It was like stepping into the future. Surrounded by antennas, transmitters, and glowing equipment, we could reach across borders and oceans. With a simple call sign and a few turns of a dial, we were talking to people from across the globe. It felt like magic.

That very first radio contact lit a spark in me—one that never faded. There was something profoundly exciting about making a voice heard in another part of the world through nothing but airwaves. It became a lifelong passion, a kind of beautiful “addiction.”

Looking back, we didn’t realize it at the time, but we were part of the world’s first true social network—long before the internet, before mobile phones, before any of the digital tools we now take for granted. Through the static and the signals, we were already connected.

The Golden Years of Amateur Radio in Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia was one of the most advanced countries in the world when it came to amateur radio. Every city had a radio club, and in larger ones – even a dozen. These clubs brought together people of all ages, united by a common passion: radio engineering, in all its forms.

Some members were top electronics engineers, others – constructors, radio direction finders or competitors with an international reputation. Each with their own role, but all with the same enthusiasm.

The road to the first radio station

Maintaining a radio connection was neither easy nor simple. To start working at a radio station, you first had to go through a serious education:

you studied technical basics

you learned Morse code through a course that lasted about six months,

you mastered the rules of radio traffic

In the end, you took an exam before a special republican commission to obtain a license, which was personally signed by the Minister of Transport and Communications.

My Experience

What attracted me most was the opportunity to establish radio connections with amateurs from all over the world. In a short time, I made contacts with over 100 countries and began participating in amateur radio competitions that were held almost every weekend, on short waves.

The courses in the club were free – knowledge was shared unreservedly. I remember when one of the members brought the first ZX Spectrum computer to Gevgelija. That was our first encounter with the concepts of hardware and software. We also held the first free computer course in the city on that computer.

The Contesting Madness

We had excellent designers and electronics engineers in the radio club. For those of us who were dedicated to radio contests, they were invaluable. The equipment often failed at crucial moments, but they reacted immediately and made the necessary repairs without delay.

As a team, we achieved significant results in many international competitions. In order to send a quality signal that would reach the whole world, we set up large antenna systems.

The 1998 contest – the pinnacle of madness

In Macedonia, the tallest iron antenna masts are located in Ohrid. After receiving permission to use them in 1998, in just three days, we set up antennas between two 65-meter-high poles. It was the true pinnacle of madness called contesting.

The competition lasted 48 hours. After its completion, the antennas were immediately dismantled.

The result? First place in the world.
Location – the key to top results

For top results in amateur radio, quiet and open locations are necessary, without radio frequency interference – locations that are usually located on high peaks, far from urban areas. Often there is no electricity there, but it is precisely such challenges that motivated us even more.

In the past decades, we have used several exclusive locations. We achieved the best results on the magic 50 megahertz band, thanks to a location at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters, with a complete infrastructure – ideal for such adventures.

From there, with the call sign Z3A, our competition team is constantly among the best in the world, and in the last 10 years, it has won first place in the world three times.

The Meteor Shower Era

In the second half of the 1980s, we began experimenting with something completely different – ​​working via meteor showers. It was a special story, full of exciting nights and uncertain moments.

It often happened that we would spend the whole evening trying to establish contact with a country in Europe – unsuccessfully. But then, the next evening, in record time, we managed to establish 7–8 radio communications, as if some hidden door in the sky had opened.

In those days, a radio communication via meteor showers lasted approximately an hour. It required patience, technical readiness and a lot of love for the hobby.

Over time and the development of technology, these communications became significantly faster – today, they are established in just a few minutes, which seemed like science fiction to us at that time.

 The Radio Club – a School for Life

Thanks to the radio club, I made many friends across Macedonia, the former Yugoslavia, and the entire world. There isn’t a single point on the globe where I haven’t made contact—decades before the internet appeared.

I learned so much from the club—working with people in all kinds of situations, sometimes life-threatening ones while installing equipment on tall metal towers, some as high as 65 meters. I learned about patience, solidarity, and what it means to be part of a global community connected not just by radio waves, but by shared passion and purpose.