CHAPTER 5 AMATEUR RADIO
Amateur Radio has been part of me, and I have been part of it for over half a century. This is the story of my involvement and is not intended as a dissertation on the history of Amateur Radio since you can read that elsewhere in better form than these few words. Of necessity some technical elements will crop up but I have tried to explain them in simple, layman’s terms.
The late Marchese Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) succeeded in sending signals in Morse code across the Atlantic in 1901. During a lecture tour of America which followed this great event, at the end of an evening’s programme he invited questions. A small boy on the front row of the audience put up his hand and said "Sir, may I ask a question?" The great man assented, whereupon the boy said "But Sir, I am only an amateur." Marconi quickly descended the steps from the stage, walked to the boy, placed a fatherly and friendly hand on his head and said "Son, so am I."
Within days of my commencing what was to be a life-long career (June 1946) I had acquired the habit of going into a stationers and newsagents close to my office to buy the Daily Telegraph. Born of a factory worker I had seen nothing hitherto than the Daily Herald and my leanings, by schooling, circle of friends and now employment were of a different kind to my father’s. One morning I saw a green-covered paperback booklet entitled "The Short Wave Listener" alongside the newspapers. The words were meaningless to me yet I had been brought up on books, never more than six feet from Chambers’ Twentieth Century Dictionary, and had a father whose greatest pleasure was literature. My prowess in English language and English literature was never in doubt throughout my school days, but what in God’s name did this Short Wave Listener mean? I was frustratingly puzzled and hurriedly opened the magazine. I discovered very quickly that radio amateurs fell into two categories: on the one hand those with a licence to transmit and on the other hand those who had yet to qualify for such a licence and merely listened (on short waves) to the goings on of their superiors in the hobby. Licences had evidently been withdrawn for security reasons during the 1939-1945 War and amateur radio transmissions were now in full operation again and equipment which had been impounded had been returned to the surviving owners. Ex-Government wireless equipment was flooding the market and amateurs were laying their hands on apparatus the like of which had been unknown before the War. The book was dedicated to the listeners who to a man were all aspiring licensees and likely customers of text books, journals, magazines and, of course, wireless components and now unwanted military merchandise. I was hooked. In amateur radio parlance "I got the bug". I purchased the book and have never looked back. Maybe, with hindsight, I had got the bug slightly earlier, in the Army Cadet Force (for which see Chapter 4) within which as SQMS 2nd Bn. Leicestershire Regiment I had had some basic Regimental Signals training and had operated walkie-talkies - at the time considered sophisticated but by modern (1997) standards rather crude.
But where to start? We were so poor at home that we didn’t have a wireless, even in those days so the obvious move was to visit a retail outlet selling ex-Government equipment. The nearest of which was at West Bridgford, Nottingham and Saturday afternoon saw me on the ‘bus, my early earnings in my pocket and purchasing an ex-Army No.18 receiver. (I told you it would get technical!!). A small but highly efficient receiver, reasonably priced, requiring batteries and an accumulator (a lead-acid cell) to run it, an aerial, headphones and seemingly an endless list of peripheral items in order to "make it go". My parents directed me to Syd Clark - he’ll know all about it, he’s an amateur. Syd did, Syd helped me much in the ensuing years and he was the first-ever radio station I contacted when I became legally able to transmit.
Syd lived in Thorpe Road, Melton Mowbray, had his radio "shack" as it is universally called, in his garden, under his huge aerial mast and aerial wires. He gave me every encouragement and loaned me headphones and an accumulator and told me where to buy a high-tension battery. With all this coupled to my precious receiver and a length of copper wire strung around the picture-rail of our house I begun to pick-up and listen to many amateurs talking to each other throughout the world. I learned. Much. I wanted a "shack". No garden shed for me - set it up on this table, said my ever-encouraging Dad, in your bedroom. And it was from then on that the typical picture of a radio amateur crouching over his gear, headphones on, in the wee small hours of every day, tuning for, listening to and logging stations from all over the globe came into being in 64 Victoria Street, Melton Mowbray, interspersed with visits to Syd across town, to envy his shack, his equipment, his ability to actually talk to other amateurs and all the time learning by his good example and his special tuition the rudiments of wireless.
All this basic training held me in good stead when, in June 1948 I was called to serve King and Country as a National Serviceman. My election for "wireless" was granted and I enlisted in the Royal Corps of Signals. On demobilisation I concentrated on furthering my career but maintained my interest in the hobby of radio as it was beginning to be called.
In 1958 the Melton Mowbray Amateur Radio Society was formed and I was one of the Founder Members. The small group begun to meet at the Technical College Annex, King Street, Melton Mowbray at monthly intervals and also in each others’ shacks. We took it in turns to give the Talk of the Month - subjects not necessarily being related to amateur radio and those able to transmit held "on the air" gatherings each Sunday morning. All this followed the very common pattern of Amateur Radio Clubs not only in this Country but world wide.
By 1959 I had determined to get my own Licence. At the time this necessitated a pass in the RAE (The Radio Amateurs’ Examination) set annually by the City & Guilds Institute and a pass in the Post Office Morse Test. Unfortunately there were no Amateur Radio Courses within reach of me (there are many nowadays) and I couldn’t send or receive the Morse Code. Later we were to see different classes of Licence with different requirements to be granted one but this is outside the scope of this Chapter.
Syd, as with all licensed amateurs held an internationally mandatory identifying callsign - his was G8CZ (and here we go technical again). Callsigns then, in England, comprised a prefix letter (identifying the country), a number (which then had no particularly relevance although it indicated the pre-war and post-war holders) and a suffix of two or three letters. Syd had acquired his licence in 1925 initially. Another local amateur then came into my life - Doug Lilley, callsign G3FDF.
Each of these gentlemen were to play a big part in laying the foundations for my standing in the world of amateur radio today.
Doug, Works Engineer at Holwell Ironworks locally, was a born teacher (indeed he taught night school at the Technical College) and gave me tuition in radio theory and the law relating to licence conditions to focus my Army Signals background from military wireless to amateur radio. He persuaded me to take a Course at the Wyggeston College, Leicester - Radio and Line Transmission I, laid on especially for budding Post Office Telegraph Engineers and in this I was successful after several months of night school. May 1959 and the chance to take the essential RAE - I demurred, being a pessimist, but Doug pressed his insistence, I took the examination and passed. The first step to my goal.
Syd kindly transmitted Morse code at an appropriately slow speed for me to receive in my bedroom shack and, once I had learned to recognise a particular character, to write down. Only letters and figures were required for the Post Office Test and a speed of a mere 12 words per minute (which felt like an express train rushing by at first). I would go up to Syd’s later in the week after a Morse training session and compare notes so that he could see my mistakes and where I needed more practice. November 1959 came - I had made my appointment to be tested at the Head Post Office at St.Martin’s le Grand, London - a long train journey in those days but, on advice of many, better than HM Coastguard Station, Mablethorpe on the grounds that seafaring folk can’t send Morse!! Quaking my way through a final series of dots on a heavy Morse key the Examiner’s face was enough to tell me I had passed. It only remained now for me to apply for my licence.
A born pessimist or not I had already purchased my transmitter and, fearful of the law which forbade the setting up of such a device prior to being licensed and the penalties if I were found out, I had left it, boxed-up in the shack! I left the Night Telegraph Office of the GPO clutching my Morse Test Pass Slip and made my way to the Licence Issuing Department of the Post Office, and my achievement in the next hour was unequalled thereafter as new arrangements came into being.
I had taken with me my precious City & Guilds Pass Slip, the Morse Test Pass Slip, the licence fee, my birth certificate, my Application for an Amateur Transmitting Licence. Confusion from hereon became worse confounded. One of the requirements was that I had to prove my British Nationality. But there’s my birth certificate, said I, to Miss M.E.Long, the Issuing Officer - who was not issuing that day, leastwise not to me! Why? Well this birth certificate gives the name of the child as RICHARD WINTERS, sex BOY, date of birth 25th March 1930, place of birth, MELTON MOWBRAY - and here I interrupted and confirmed the facts. But, but, but, said she, impatiently, the certificate is signed by - yes, you’ve guessed it - RICHARD WINTERS !!
But I am the Deputy Superintendent Registrar I insisted! There was I, on the threshold of becoming a real radio amateur, snookered because of bureaucracy!! Eventually after even suggesting that she rang Somerset House, the Registrar General’s then HQ, it dawned upon me that I had my Passport with me, produced it and all was satisfied.
I received the callsign G3NVK and couldn’t wait to get the next train home!! I had made it! This was Tuesday 17th November 1959.
There was one essential intention in my mind, burning the very cells of my brain, obscuring all rational thought. And no, you have not surmised correctly. To get home, un-box that pristine transmitter and get on the air was NOT my foremost purpose. I was desperate to tell my Jo.
My Jo was (and still is, albeit in the guise of wife) my girl, my life, my all. I had met her on 21st May that year in the house of the Registrar at Asfordby whilst enjoying a hot supper with the family and friends and the relationship which quickly grew from that meeting was idyllic, romantic and everlasting. You will read more of this in the next Chapter.
I had taken small change, pennies in those days, sufficient to make the essential telephone call and I did this from a huge rank of kiosks at GPO HQ and arranged a rendez-vous with Jo for that evening at Melton Mowbray Railway Station. Jo subsequently sent me a congratulatory card inscribed with the Freudian slip:-
"All my love, and may you have many contracts"
Indeed I was to have "many contracts" in the years ahead and they were essential to our survival but her intended wish for "many contacts" was also met and I continue to have same, with her full support in all my varied activities in the field of amateur radio, and for which I am ever grateful.
I did un-box the transmitter when I got home that night: I refused to succumb to my next greatest wish - to start transmitting. My reason? I had promised myself that if I never worked a radio amateur station, ever, anywhere I would only work Sid, G8CZ as my first. I had to wait 3 agonising days (and nights) to achieve that on Saturday 21st November 1959 - the first entry in the first of my (now) many logbooks - the bare remarks column merely says "VRY MNI TNX SYD" meaning "Very many thanks Syd". From that moment I never looked back. Sadly G8CZ SK 1989 - RIP.
Shall we go technical again for a moment? Short wave radio propagation, i.e. the passage of signals from one station to another, usually over relatively long distances, depends to a large extent on activity on the Sun which affects the reflecting layers above the Earth and without which propagation at those frequencies or wavelengths would not be possible. The Sunspot Cycle is of approximately 11 years duration. It was a great happy coincidence that my radio activities in the Army (see Chapter 4) were in 1948 - a peak in radio conditions and again, 11 years later in 1959 when I obtained my personal licence.
It will not surprise you therefore to know that with my keenness, my opportunities, Jo’s backing and the friendships that were to derive from being a full-blown member of the hobby, coupled with this maximum of dispersion of radio signals around the globe that I was soon in the forefront of operators. With surprising rapidity, and ease, I had acquired the International Amateur Radio Union’s coveted "Worked all Continents" certificate. This achievement award, one of many throughout the world, was then almost the yardstick of radio operating as it required two-way radio contact on at least two occasions with each of the six recognised continental areas of the world (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania) (Antarctica was added later as a separate area). Proof of having made the contacts came from the production of acknowledgment cards exchanged by amateurs with each other to record the contact - these are not by any means obligatory but serve to deepen the friendship existing between two amateurs as well as the proof for the aforesaid awards. The cards are known as QSL cards, or QSL’s from the letters of an International Telegraph Code of many decades standing, and meaning "I acknowledge receipt of your signals".
Many and varied "Contests" are held world-wide. The object of this competitive activity is usually to work (the amateur terminology for contact) either specified stations (as in the days of yore, those of the British Empire - a most famous contest), or a free-for-all, i.e. to work as many throughout the world, counting the number of countries contacted or occasionally limited to counties, in a given time. My most favourite was the CQ WORLD WIDE CONTEST, held, for its speech section in October of a year and for its Morse section in November. The duration of this Contest was midnight Friday to midnight Sunday, using any wavelength allowed to radio amateurs (they are limited of course), having a maximum limit on power used (thus no unfair advantage as a high-power signal will invariably be better received than a low-power one) and other global criteria. The physiology of contest operating and logging the contacts made has been the subject of much study over the years not least by me in my hey-day and, to cut a long story short, I came 5th in Europe in 1960 in this great event, Morse section. Nowadays much effort is spent on automatic Morse machines, keyboard-derived Morse, computer logging and a whole host of other non-human endeavour to the extent that I believe one day we shall just switch on automatic stations and let them get on with it whilst we go fishing!! From which you can determine that I am not in favour of it!
Amateurs have a jargon or language all of their own. Most of the vocabulary stems from the said Q-code, used by early telegraphists to save time and effort when pounding a Morse key to communicate along fixed telegraph wires, before the days of wireless. It is not intended here to bore the lay reader with full details of the plethora of items in the Code - suffice to say that each is a 3-letter group starting with Q and which can be used as a statement if sent as such or as a question if terminated in a question mark. An example: QTH means "My location is..........." and what follows the code group is meaningful in any language - a Japanese for example can easily transmit to his fellow amateur in Bulgaria "QTH TOKYO" and the Bulgarian, with no knowledge of Japanese instantly knows the whereabouts of his contact. Conversely the Japanese sends to the Bulgarian "QTH?" - the Bulgarian replies "QTH SOFIA" from which our Oriental friend knows his contact is in the capital city of the South Eastern European State. These codes have migrated from the original Morse use to common speech and it is not uncommon to hear two English-speaking amateurs actually mouthing to each other "What’s your QTH?" The possibilities are, though not limitless, far too great to elaborate upon here.
The social side of amateur radio knows no bounds. Once you know the other man (or woman - there are many of them in the hobby) has this common bond it is "Open Sesame" completely - beggars may walk and talk with kings - indeed King Hussein of Jordan was one of many élitist in the band. I heard him one day chastise an American amateur who insisted on referring to him as "Your Majesty" - the Jordanian monarch said to him "Look, Fred, if you don’t call me by my name, Hussein, I shall close this contact." In the days of the severe Cold War, Russian stations were allowed to contact the rest of the world, albeit usually under supervision or strictly monitored and even the ubiquitous QSL cards were sent out, usually carrying much propaganda but nevertheless very interesting and much sought after.
Most districts have their local Radio Club or Society and Melton Mowbray is no exception. Melton Mowbray Amateur Radio Society (MMARS) was founded in 1959 and is today approaching its 40th year. Commencing with a mere 6 or so enthusiasts it now boasts 30-40 individuals on its mailing list and can muster 20, mostly licensed, members at its monthly meetings. From inception until his untimely death on 19th January 1977, my close friend and mentor Doug Lilley, G3FDF held the Chairmanship of MMARS and I took over during his terminal illness and hold the post to this day. (Amateurs have a term for deceased members of the fraternity - Silent Keys or SKs). I have every Annual Programme of Events, and every copy of Minutes of Annual General Meeting that have passed through the chair of the Society since 1958 up to this year’s (1997) as a full historical detail of the Society.
Internationally and not surprisingly amateurs hold national and international Rallies - usually at some well-known venue - for example Longleat, Woburn Abbey, the National Exhibition Centre at Birmingham, and recreational establishments capable of holding the many who attend. Here members can meet and talk, dealers attend in great profusion with their wares for display and sale and opportunities which cannot be achieved in many towns (Melton is a typical example) to examine new (and second-hand) equipment occur. One of the biggest of such Rallies is the Leicester Amateur Radio Show, held annually in October in Granby Halls and which event has taken place now for 26 years although the Halls are under threat of demolition and another locus will have to be found.
Special Event Stations are often permitted by the licensing authority - no longer the Post Office, or as it was later the Department of Trade and Industry but now the Radiocommunications Agency. The rarity value of some of the stations guarantees many other amateur stations wishing to work them: Windsor Castle, Dover Castle, Lighthouses, the Science Museum, BBC, Marconi 1903 Wireless site at Poldhu, HMS Belfast, Scouting Jamboree locations, the Yuri Gagarin Cosmodrome, the Loughborough Carillon, HMS Protector in Antarctica (they were playing golf with black golf balls on the ice floes at the time) - the list from my mandatory log book is endless.
Frequently asked questions are easily answered:-
No, it can cost as little as you wish, from £5 to £5,000 for equipment.
There is only the terrestrial limit: the farthest possible to work is the Antipodes (men in space are usually only 250 miles or so overhead) and
Yes, there are radio amateurs circling the globe - mainly those on the Russian MIR space station.
The only limitations on conversation topics are that religion and politics are banned.
No, I have not been instrumental in saving the life of a drowning yachtsman in the South China Seas or rushing life-saving drugs to Central Zimbabwe - the emergency services are much better at this than we amateurs, the emergency wavelengths are remote from amateur frequency bands, it is an offence under the licence conditions to handle third-party traffic and most amateurs of the few who have been involved in this sort of matter have had their licence revoked for a period following contravention of the licence conditions.
No I have not heard anything funny or strange which may have emanated from space: enough is going on with SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) to be able to say with certainty that there ain’t nowt out there! It must be realised that radio waves travel at 300,000,000 metres PER SECOND (or if you prefer it in old money 186,000 MILES per second) - the nearest star is 4½ light years away so a signal sent to any creature with the ability to hear it on Centauri Proxima wouldn’t receive the signal for 4½ years from when you sent it:--"Hello there" - another 4½ years for the reply "Who’s that?" Get away with you! And don’t forget there are known objects millions of LIGHT YEARS distant from this Planet!!
Personalities? Oh yes, there are many. Perhaps a couple of stories about two of them close to me might do to finish off this part?
The first of the Ken’s is Ken Cook - correctly Kenneth John Cook. Born in Wales on 9th March 1912 he served with the Royal Corps of Signals in the mid-1930’s and became an Experimental Wireless Assistant, later a Government Radio Officer. He held the callsign G2KK. I was privileged to know him from my first days on the air in 1959 until his death on 21st December 1996 in Auckland, New Zealand. I dubbed him the Prince of Operators: he taught me much, by example, and deliberately and if I am an exponent at all of the art of Morse Code it is entirely thanks to him. We first met when he was stationed at the rather secret establishment at Woodhouse Eaves, Loughborough but his job took him to Nairobi and Scarborough - both places to conjure with by those "in the know". We effected "skeds" (an Americanism which has crept into our language) or scheduled contact arrangements, nightly from Nairobi to Melton Mowbray - Morse as that was beloved of us both. After several months of firm contacts, swapping curry recipes, family news, the common bond of Royal Signals’ information etc. he failed to turn up one night. The arrangement was that if we failed to make contact within 5 minutes of the pre-arranged time we would abandon for that night - either of us could be ill, equipment could have failed, we were not there, radio conditions (there are such things as Dellinger fade-outs caused by excess sunspot activity) or many other things could have precluded the contact. I went indoors from my shack. Some time later the telephone rang and an irate uncultured voice growled "You’re one of them radio ama-chewers ain’t yer?" Taken aback, I paused, then admitted it. "Well, I can’t see a bloody thing on my telly cos of you - night after night - talking to that bloke in Kenya." I paused again while it filtered into my brain that my caller must know (and be able to read fast-sent) Morse code if he knew I was chatting with Kenya. I asked him if he could in fact read Morse and a very very sophisticated voice assured me "Don’t worry old boy, it’s Ken here, the War Office sent for me so I flew by BA Comet from Nairobi to London this afternoon and I am now up here in Loughborough - can we meet?" (His wife Sheila was a Loughborough lady). I readily agreed, collected him and the ensuing wine and curry, returning him to the Kings Head at Loughborough at 3.a.m. and getting to work at 8 a.m. that morning is a night to remember! In the event he had reminded me that we hadn’t then met for some years and in case I couldn’t remember him it would be patent who he was when I saw him - now this from a 6foot 3inch heavily-built man with a handlebar moustache!! He stood on the tall steps of the Loughborough Hotel, mackintosh draped over his shoulders and holding the biggest pineapple I had ever seen - complete with stalk, taller than himself - an item he had purchased at Nairobi Airport that afternoon for threepence he assured me!
His favourite after-dinner joke was that the then late Prince of Wales paid a State Visit to Paris in 1910. On being driven along the l’Avenue des Champs-Élysées in an open landau he was heard to exclaim "Dieu et mon droit" which being interpreted means "By God they drive on the right!" (With apologies to any Francophiles reading this).
My first contact with G2KK was on 4th December 1959, the first with him in Nairobi (VQ4IV later 5Z4IV) 19th March 1963, Scarborough 3rd May 1965 and Auckland 1st January 1974. Our 500th contact (on 6th January 1977) produced a parcel sent by him via HM Diplomatic Courier and contained a Rhodesian copper beer tankard - pint sized, along with a note that said "When we reach 1,000 I expect to exchange 40-piece silver dinner services". We never made it sadly.
My final story of G2KK to bring back the joy of my friendship with him concerns the skeds we held when he emigrated to New Zealand. Every morning, before I went to work, his evening, we would effect our contact - in Morse of course. I must tell you here that he schooled me in Morse over many years and insisted we used full accents and punctuation - we were both meticulous and pedantic. The normal amateur Morse Test calls for only letters and numbers. After several months of the same greeting "GM KEN HW?" meaning "Good morning Ken, how do you copy my signals?" (weak signals due to poor conditions might have meant that we should send slower or with repeats), I braved all and sent "Bon jour cher ami, comment ça va aujourd’hui". He replied in French, with full accents and punctuation totally nonplussed and we continued thus for our normal fifteen minutes or so. I enjoyed it so much that the next morning, remembering his days in Nairobi I had the temerity to open with "Jambo bwana". I proceeded to copy down two pages of meaningless jumble onto my notepad. I queried at the end of his transmission and slowly, very slowly, he sent "Well, you started off in Swahili, so naturally I expected you to continue" and with that he closed down - firmly! We were the best of friends thereafter but I was careful always to begin "GM KEN HW?"
The other Ken came into my life in May 1967 - in fact at the MMARS monthly meeting held on 18th May 1967 the topic being a discussion on Aerials. Suddenly amongst the audience I noticed a stranger - civilian clothes but it transpired a serving Warrant Officer with REME at Old Dalby Central Ordnance Depot locally. He introduced himself and on being asked his callsign explained that he couldn’t get his licence yet as neither he nor his parents could find his birth certificate (birth certificate? shades of November 1959!!). I spoke to my counterpart Superintendent Registrar for Pakenham, Norfolk the next day, the certificate quickly arrived and so did Ken’s licence - G3WKM. We made our first contact a day or two later, our families met and have been the closest of friends ever since - close in the friendship and frequent meetings sense but since they were posted to Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides and following retirement went to live in Inverness not so close physically!!)
We have therefore a long-standing ongoing friendship with Ken and Sylvia, Philip, Paul, Lynne and Sue and all the grandchildren.
When Ken was posted to the Officers’ Quarters at Tuzo Close, Benbecula - a remote Hebridean Island, he was unpacking household and other items in his garage when an irate Colonel came up to him. Ken, a true soldier, slammed to attention, saluted and gave a quick "Sir!". The Colonel said that news of Ken’s imminent arrival had got there first and that already, as a radio amateur, he was causing havoc on his, the Colonel’s, and many other televisions in the district. Ken stamped hard on the Army packing case he was standing on, and said "I can hardly be causing television interference (TVI) when the transmitter is in this screwed-down case can I, Sir!??" The area was extremely poor for television reception and although Ken did much to improve facilities locally particularly for the troops he was never again accused of TVI!!
TVI, the bête noire of all radio amateurs, crops up again in my story of Ken Melton. "Testing - Testing - Testing, testing for TVI" said Ken many times into his microphone, with Sylvia his XYL (that’s ex-YL, ex or former Young Lady = his wife), with Sylvia watching the black and white television screen in the lounge for signs of intermodulation products, herringboning or other disasters which would preclude Ken transmitting. A very loud voice proclaimed from his loudspeaker when he stopped transmitting - "You sure ain’t causing TVI in West Virginia" - his transmission had gone all that way to a fellow-amateur who just happened to be listening on the frequency!
There are specialists in every field of human endeavour. Amateur radio is no exception and whilst many pursue activities such as moon-bounce (signals transmitted from Earth to the Moon and reflected back to be received by Earth-bound listeners), satellite transmissions (OSCAR is Orbital Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) which do away with the need for natural reflective layers but need a moderate amount of sophistication, mobile (in cars and boats) operations, contesting, high speed Morse, awards and trophies chasing, just plain old ragchewing or nattering, meteor-trail propagation and much more. I elected in 1952 to specialise.
In November 1962 I joined my regimental Society - RSARS - the Royal Signals Amateur Radio Society which had been formed in June of the previous year. Soon afterwards, being Corps-badged (an ex-serving member of the, first Royal Corps of Signals, later Royal Signals) I became a Life Member.
I took part for many years in the Society’s Awards and Contests scheme, winning most of the major awards more than once. On 30th November 1986 I started the CHATTERBOX NET. A weekly on-the-air gathering of members of the Society, Sunday mornings on a wavelength where, at best, only Europe would be present (i.e. not the world-wide long-distance bands) and proceeded to run that Net every Sunday morning - at the time of writing (1997) we have just held the 535th Net. The object was that we should talk to each other and not indulge in certificate and award chasing for which there was much opportunity, on other days throughout the week and on all bands including those where Overseas contacts were the norm. The Net gained a certain amount of popularity and our aim is to achieve the 1,000th on Sunday 3rd December 2006.
In July 1983 I elected to walk to the Annual General Meeting. The AGM was then held at Catterick Garrison. My home in Melton Mowbray is some 151 miles from the Garrison. With a little training (walking was the common hobby of Jo and I) and a lot of back-up from Jo who drove on ahead of me and we met up at salient points on the journey, I achieved this with one cracked molar (Kendal Mint cake being the cause) and £700 for the Corps’ Benevolent Fund ten minutes before the stated time - like any good soldier - I had said I would enter 8 Signal Regiment Guardroom at 1600 hrs on the day before the AGM. I arrived much to the surprise of assorted Brigadiers, Colonels, Majors and others, including members of RSARS at 1550 hrs. Much back-slapping and publicity ensued, local and military and it is an achievement I rather value in my annals - at least it is unique. I attended my 25th AGM this year at the now venue of Royal School of Signals, Blandford, Dorset.
In July 1982 I took over the editorship of the RSARS Journal "MERCURY" - issued three times a year and comprising 64 pages of pertinent Society matter - this has replaced my day-to-day involvement in radio operating and I find it much more preferable now, after all the years of on-the-air activity - I still have to keep in touch of course but the emphasis is on the literary work now rather than the technical. Computers of course are much to the fore and a great part of my retirement life and I am now editor too of the Internet World Wide Web Home Pages of the Society and exchange E-mail with members at the four corners of the globe on a daily basis.
I was made a Life Honorary Vice President of the Society for my involvement in the affairs of RSARS - one of only 4 at the time - and in 1995 was formally presented to the Corps’ Colonel-in-Chief Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal, Princess Anne at Blandford Camp. The photograph of the two of us hangs resplendent on my editorial office wall.
Amateur radio and in particular RSARS are an essential part of my existence - not perhaps as important as oxygen but as important as food and water - I would be in a pretty sad state without them.