Hello Fellow Cliftonaires,

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Following a recent chat on the ‘twisted pair’ with John Lambert (G3FNZ) about our respective paths into the hobby. John told me how as a 15yr old he had been given a copy of ‘Practical Wireless’ by a friend. This led John to building the three valve battery operated receiver that had featured in the ‘PW………….The rest as they would say now is history.??

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I hope you enjoy reading John’s article together with the letter/QSL (jpeg attached) as much as I did.

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A Message from RMS Queen Mary

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? By John Lambert

In 1945 I returned to South East London as a 15 year old school boy, having been away for 5 years as an evacuee.

I became very interested in the workings of radio sets, and one day a friend gave me a copy of a magazine called “Practical Wireless” and in this was the design of a 3 valve battery operated shortwave receiver.? I decided that I would like to build this, and checked on my pocket money but after several donation request visits to my grandparents, had enough money to purchase all the components necessary.

I built the receiver, and to my delight and surprise it worked, and I spent many happy hours listening to broadcasts from around the world.? At that time the majority of the transmissions were either national or commercial broadcast stations, as very few countries had started to re-issue amateur licences.

It was with great surprise, therefore, that on one occasion I heard two men talking to each other, and this intrigued me and it was some time before I understood what was going on.? The answer was that it was an interview being made for the BBC programme “Monday Night at Eight”, wherein the programme comprised a number of small snippets of information deemed to be of interest to the general public.?

One of the items that was broadcast each week was an interview with a famous person whose birthday coincided with the specific broadcast.? After listening to the transmission for some time I realised that this was an interview being made for this programme, and the person of interest was Sir Thomas Beecham.? The only trouble was that Sir Thomas had been to America and was on his way home, and was on board the RMS Queen Mary in mid-Atlantic.

The transmission was spoiled because Sir Thomas would insist on shouting into the microphone, which caused considerable distortion.? Also that somebody on board the ship kept removing their headphones, which resulted in all sorts of squeals and other weird noises.

This particular interview was being made via shortwave radio, and had to be carefully controlled to avoid interference and signal fading, to both of which this method of long-distance transmission is very prone.

I was so intrigued by the whole thing, that I had the temerity to write to Cunard’s for the attention of the Chief Radio Officer of the Queen Mary, and a few weeks later was delighted to receive a reply confirming my comments about the transmission, and was “over the moon” to receive a picture of the Queen Mary’s radio room.

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Similar to John, albeit a few decades later I too was an avid SWL. Again starting with a regenerative two valve battery operated receiver. Then acquiring an Eddystone 670 receiver on a ‘long term loan’ from the late Ken Willis (G8VR) who was a neighbour of mine at the time.

Being an SWL was a rite of passage and the accepted pathway into amateur radio. Unfortunately this aspect of the hobby seems to have lost ground as manually tuning a receiver among the general population is a ‘forgotten skill’ in these days of ‘Alexa’ and digital streaming.

For those of us who still have the curiosity, temerity and perseverance, the HF bands outside our frequency allocations are still fertile areas

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For example, a very strong AM signal on 3.973 MHz proclaiming to be ‘Amateur Radio on line news’. This featured a very professional presentation of news items from the ARRL, RSGB, Australian Radio Society as well as JARL etc. I have a suspicion the signals originated in central Europe (Germany?).

A clandestine “numbers station” was found on 4.212Mhz. Albeit, using USB with five letter groups in phonetics. The operator with a distinct North American accent concluded with “This is top-dog out” Shortly after the transmissions resumed with much weaker signals which could be indicative of the transmitter on a different ‘beam-heading’.

The station that made both Suzanne and I smile was on 9.330 MHz AM, with the station ident of WLC (World’s Last Chance). Programme content was to say the least very unusual, with very slick professional presentation, wrapped round an evangelical theme claiming the world is flat!???????? I am not joking!

The transmitter is located in the state of Maryland USA and claims an output power of 500KW to a large rotatable antenna array. The station has apparently been totally refurbished including the new antenna array, all funded by the WLC organisation who broadcast 24hrs a day 365day a year!

For the aeronautical fans try 11.300Mhz USB ATC main call frequency for North and Central Africa with regular ‘unauthorised chatter’ between ‘controllers’ at Cairo, Khartoum and Addis Ababa ?

And finally on 5.262Mhz USB (60m CW allocation) Scottish trawler-men off Orkney discussing the day’s catch.

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My thanks to John (G3FNZ) for allowing me to circulate his script and the image of the QSL.

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73 es keep listening es stay safe de Tony es Suzanne.

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