OPEN UNIVERSITY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
NEWS LETTER no:49
G0OUR Affiliated to the OU Club and the Radio Society of Great Britain
I trust this finds you in good health. Due to Covid 19 and resulting tight restrictions on campus, we will be holding the AGM online again: 2022AGM, Thursday 20th of January at 12.30pm. As last year, we will use Microsoft Teams. If you are able to take part, please email: paul.maher@open.ac.uk and Paul will send you a Teams invite. Let’s hope we can meet again in person soon. At the 2021 AGM it was decided to suspend the usual £5 annual subscription charge, since normal club activities have not been possible, and also to avoid handling cash etc.
We’re pleased to welcome Alberto Maldonado KI6QFJ to the club. Al works on campus in IFEC, STEM. He is originally from Spain, and obtained his licence while living in California. Unfortunately there is no reciprocal licencing arrangement, so he is looking into taking the necessary courses/exams to obtain his UK callsign.
Unfortunately the obituary for Bert Gladwin, G3FVO, SK, arrived too late for the last newsletter. Bertie was an OU graduate, and also completed a Masters Degree with Buckingham University when in his nineties. We thank Adrian for this:
Former member of the OUARC, Bert Gladwin, died on August 14th 2020. Bertie was 99¼, and had seen service in the Middle East during the 2nd World War. He had been a Morse operator since he joined up in 1940 – over three-quarters of a century at the key. When hostilities ended, he became a wireless operator/navigator with Sabena Airways, and flew between Brussels and the Belgian Congo. The Douglas DC-3 Dakota aircraft did the trip in only four days each way. He travelled the world as a wireless operator for GCHQ, maintaining communications between British embassies and Hanslope Park. He leaves behind his wife Wendy, daughter Mich, and dog Buddy.
Equipment wise not much has changed of course. The 40/30m dipole feeder is still broken, and is actually in a worse state than before due to all the gales. Estates are arranging for the masts to be inspected again, early in the New Year. The top cable on the P60 was fitted as the wrong length from new, so we have requested that this is corrected during the inspection, and have provided details of the correct cable. Hopefully this will be done, then the mast can at last be raised to its correct height. It was noted at the AGM that an OUARC member has procured a nanoVNA- vector network analyser. These are very useful for antenna testing, etc., and it was recommended that the club purchase one.
The shed adjacent to the shack, which we use for storage and as a workshop, has suffered damage due to the weather. Part of the roofing felt was blown off, which resulted in damp problems. Estates have fitted a tarpaulin as a temporary fix. They have proposed replacing both the shed and shack (a mobile office/caravan) with one unit (both have seen better days). We’re not sure exactly what the options are yet and what type of structure is proposed. This would involve a fair amount of work, dismantling the station, storing all the shack equipment, tools, and shed contents, then reinstalling everything, rerouting power and antenna cables etc. It would however be a very positive step for the long term future of the club.
Committee members have been able to make occasional checks on the shack and antennas thanks to our Covid risk assessment. We understand that a further risk assessment must be completed for other club activities, although with the rapid rise in Omicron cases, we sadly don’t envisage much activity at the shack in the short term.
Unfortunately we were not able to put in an appearance in the RSGB Club Calls contest this year. We have been able to air the G3OU club callsign on occasions although not from the club shack. This included 200 contacts in the CQWW 160m contest back in January, and 100 contacts in the ARRL DX contest in February. Remember that members can activate our club callsigns from home or elsewhere. If so please email a copy of the log for club records.
From our Secretary Adrian, M0ANS: Beatrice Whittaker, G3RIW – recollections from the 1960s:
I become involved in email correspondence with Vin Robinson, G4JTR, former chair of Reading and District Amateur Radio Club. He had been clearing out the shack of an SK club member, G2BTO, and came across his collection of QSL cards. One of the cards was from a teenage girl, Beatrice Whittaker, G3RIW.
In the early 1960s, it was unusual to find female radio hams, so he carried out some research. One response was from Elizabeth Bruton of the Science Museum, who tracked down a reference to G3RIW in OUARC Newsletter No. 16. This was an article that I had written years ago on the subject of ‘How I became interested in amateur radio’. The following is my reply to his enquiry.
Vin, thank you for your email and notes about the QSL card from G3RIW. I especially liked the various scans you sent.
Rather than weave a narrative it would be easier, if you would allow me, to write the following as a series of bullet points. I fear that a smooth narrative could introduce approximations that don’t really belong amongst the recollections.
I came into contact with her through a local firm of builders, Symons & Co. of Berens Road, NW10. One of their employees, Cliff Small, had done various bits of building work for as long as I can remember, say from age five onwards. This was how things were done in suburban NW London. Evidently he was similarly engaged at Beatrice’s home in Chevening Road. Cliff knew that I was interested in electricity and radio, and it was he who made the connection with Beatrice.
This happened in the period 1966-67 when I was 12-13 years old. I recall being taken to her shack and seeing all the radio equipment, neatly installed on the wall of the back room. She talked at length about radio, but I don’t recall her ever switching the equipment on. She had a long wire antenna that went the length of the garden. Her father was Welsh. He was a qualified chemist, and did consultancies in things related to chemistry. He explained to me that consultants get paid in lump sums for doing a particular job, whereas other people work continuously and get paid regularly. (I didn’t understand the import of this).
Her mother was Chinese and taught a Chinese-related subject at London University. Apparently, there was a price on her head. If ever she returned to China, the authorities there would be very interested to see her, but not in a nice way.
Looking at the photo on the QSL card, it all made sense. I recalled that the radio equipment in her shack seemed to be balanced on lots of metal rods. Now I realize that this was the kind of stuff that industrial chemists would use. The drawers beneath the worktop, too, look like laboratory equipment.
I remember the Heathkit Mohican receiver (mentioned on the QSL card) and the skeleton.
She explained that the radio receiver was a device that looked at the electromagnetic spectrum through a sort of window. I more-or-less understood this, but not its significance. She also explained single sideband transmission, of which I understood nothing.
Beatrice told me that she went to a special school (Steiner?) in Ruislip.
She went on to London University to study medicine. I think she was 21 in 1967 and was preparing to take her First MBs (?). She said she wanted to specialise in paediatrics, but I didn’t know what that was.
(If Beatrice was 21 in 1967, then she would have been 16 in 1962 when the QSL card was sent. She must have obtained her licence at the earliest possible age). The two magazine articles suggest that she hit the news shortly after getting her licence.
She told the story of the occasion she was on the air, and had a call from the US Navy, who asked her to relay a message on their behalf. This was at the time of Hurricane Flora. (This is what I remember. It didn’t make sense at the time, and makes less sense now. Perhaps she just overheard the US Navy?).
She took me to her amateur radio club which, I think, was in the vicinity of Archway in London.
Beatrice gave me a series of booklets with designs for transistor radios and amplifiers, which I still have. I read and studied these books and attempted many of the designs. I could not get a single one of them to work, so I cheekily looked up the author in the London telephone directory and called him. I ended up speaking to his landlady who said he had recently moved out. The author’s name was Clive Sinclair.
I lost touch with her after 1967. I remember looking up her callsign in the RSGB book and noticing, at one point, that G3RIW vanished, but that a gap existed in the listing where it should have been. Her father joked that RIW stood for Red Indian Woman, because Beatrice was ‘Eurasian’ (his words, not mine).
Your enquiry has made me reminisce this period of my life, something I haven’t had occasion to do for a long time. They were good times. Thank you!
Adrian Rawlings 4/11/2020.
So, considering nothing’s been happening, we’ve ended up with a bumper newsletter this time! That’s about it for now; hope to see some of you online for the AGM on Thursday 20th January. Meanwhile have a great Christmas and New Year.