G4BWB - Born Again Radio Amateur
Some fifty-two years ago, as a schoolboy, I was introduced to the wonderful hobby of amateur radio, which has brought me so much pleasure and lasting friendships over the years. After a silence of twenty years, I re-emerged in 2007, as sort of ‘Born Again’ amateur in the guise of 9V1RA. There is something magical about this hobby that I just can’t grow out of.
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| SWL ROBERT ANDREWS 1967 QEH BOARDING SCHOOL BRISTOL |
Another great source of encouragement came in the rotund pipe-smoking form of Maurice Wilkins G3YOH, who warmly greeted me into the fairly newly formed Shirehampton Amateur Radio Club, in 1971. Maurice was just the best front-of-house man any radio club would need to welcome newcomers. I have had an association with Shirehampton ARC ever since. I’d also like to posthumously thank Maurice for introducing me to beer and Italian Opera.
By this time, I had enrolled on the MPT Radio Officers course at Brunel Technical College. I had applied to become a domestic TV engineer, just like Colin G3YHV, but I walked into the wrong interview room! So radio was now firmly part of my life. On 15th February 1973, I became licensed as G4BWB. My great joy from this event was crushed on 13th March 1973, when train enthusiast and station inspector, Dennis Hedges, condemned my state-of-the-art F.G. Rayer designed top-band transmitter as a device that promoted stronger harmonic radiation than the frequency it was designed for. Yet, two weeks later, over a cup of tea and a conversation about trains, Dennis relented and allowed me back on the air. I had done nothing about the harmonic issue!
During the years up until 1985, radio was an all-consuming interest. I was very active on 160M, as well as HF. I was also very engrossed in the running of Shirehampton ARC. However, on the 20th April 1987, I had a QSO with Clive, G4NAQ. At 10.30 AM, I switched off and remained off the air for the next twenty years. These were the wilderness years dealing with ailing parents, marrying and bringing up a family and trying to earn a living.
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| EARLY G4BWB (1973?) |
During the years up until 1985, radio was an all-consuming interest. I was very active on 160M, as well as HF. I was also very engrossed in the running of Shirehampton ARC. However, on the 20th April 1987, I had a QSO with Clive, G4NAQ. At 10.30 AM, I switched off and remained off the air for the next twenty years. These were the wilderness years dealing with ailing parents, marrying and bringing up a family and trying to earn a living.
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| G4BWB 1976 |
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| G4BWB IN 1974 |
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| G4BWB IN 1985 |
For twenty years I had drifted away from amateur radio. In the beginning, it had been the amateur radio community who had welcomed me and encouraged my interest. Now, in 2007, it was the Singapore amateur community who had encouraged me back into the hobby. But it is more than the wonderful friends I have made that’s been the binding force that has kept my interest even during the dormant hibernation years. And that’s really what the point of all this garbage I have written is about is coming to.
It’s hard to explain to a generation of internet communicators, what the draw of amateur radio is. I’m not sure I have the answers. More than ever, though, we need people like Len G4UZ, and Maurice G3YOH, and my Singapore friends to welcome newcomers in order to secure a future for what may well become a fading hobby. So what draws me to this hobby? Well it’s the magical element I mentioned at the beginning. I make no other comparison between myself and Marconi other than the belief that we have both shared something quite wonderful. In Degna Marconi’s book, ‘My father Marconi’, she tells the story of how Marconi’s mother was summoned upstairs to the attic room in the Villa Grifone, which Marconi had secured as a laboratory, despite protestations from his father. What she witnessed must have been a truly magical moment. When Marconi pressed the telegraph key a bell quietly tinkled at the other end of the room. Between the key and the bell was nothing but air. It must have been similar to the kind of moment that I still feel whenever I transmit the equivalent power of a 100 watt light bulb (or much less) into the air and get a reply from the other side of the world.
