RSS/SCU Newsletter no.17 Jan 2004

With 2003 behind us we may now look forward to our next reunion on Sunday April 18^th at Bletchley Park. It will probably be held in the usual room but should there be any changes you will be informed by notices or at the gate. One change is that there is now a £5 charge for parking (in addition to the entrance fee for those without a Freedom of the Park pass) but at present I believe the Railway Station has free parking and is only a couple of minutes' walk away.

Programme

Arrive before 11 am if possible. (gates are open between 1000 and 1030)

1100 Welcome and announcements

1115 Who invented the Morse Code? (A saunter through the history of the telegraph) G3ASE

1155 The Philco transceiver. David White G3ZPA

1215 Palestine Experiences. Bob Painter G3BPF

1245 Break

1345 Forfar. All those who served there please make contributions. Followed by a general natter.l

Museum closes at about 1500

The program is as usual subject to modification as the 'exigencies of the service' demand. (That should bring back a few memories).

Noel White's brush with the enemy.

Sgmn 2602285 spent some time at Arkley playing with HROs and AR88s in addition to messing about in the DF room. (He omits to mention that it was largely staffed by ATS girls). He mentions the presence of ex-Cable and Wireless high-speed operators which is a reminder that the RSS employed Morse code operators from many sources. He was billeted (as was G3ASE) with Merchant Navy wireless ops who had been adrift in open boats and suffered frostbite. Amongst the staff at Arkley were some GPO operators and of course many more worked on interception.

After weapons training with rifle, Sten and Bren guns and the handling of noisy hand grenades, the time came for Noel to be posted overseas. From Barnet he travelled by train, complete with tropical gear, topee, kitbag and rifle. It was a long journey up the east coast then across Scotland to Goorock near Greenock. The wife of one member of the party was seen coming from the door of his house and he must have had very mixed feelings as this could well be his last sight of her. It took several days for a convoy to assemble but eventually his unit boarded the crowded HMT Letitia. Churchill had apparently ordered transports to carry 25% more troops than previously. Noel still has his boarding docket and his hammock allocation. Some comfort was derived from the issue of all with a lifejacket to be worn at all times, well nearly all times. During the voyage across the Bay of Biscay the convoy was attacked by numerous U boats and the escorting destroyers would close in on a small area of sea and drop depth charges causing hammer-like blows on the hull of his ship. Slow-flying biplanes took off from an aircraft-carrier and circled round. Noel was later told that three submarines were destroyed.

(Sadly Noel had to leave the account at this point but I hope he will be able to continue at a later date-Bob)

Oh, happy days

The young interceptor of today faces problems not experienced by hams in the 30s and 40s. Today he cannot strip a modern piece of equipment in order to use the parts for constructing an HF receiver. The components are not suitable and rarely re-usable. Should he purchase some ridiculously cheap transistors he would find that getting them to work is far trickier than using valves to do the same job. Transistors have the advantages of requiring low voltages, small size and being readily available. Their main disadvantage is the multitude of associated components resulting in complicated circuits and the consequent difficulty in getting everything right for satisfactory results. Fault tracing is not easy and there is no comforting warm glow from the almost (when properly used) electrically indestructible valve. Given a suitable power supply a simple 'straight' valve receiver is quick to make and results are usually good at the first attempt. The relative performance is still debated but my experience favours the valve for signal-to-noise ratio and sensitivity.

Having made or purchased the receiver, what is the young hopeful to listen for? He will certainly come across broadcast stations and may even find some using English. The BBC World Service excludes Britain from the world by beaming all its transmissions away from this country so only a few can be heard here; on 648 KHz only listeners around East Anglia will receive them. The most common sounds will be data transmissions and various unpleasant noises, some intentionally transmitted and many caused by all the multitude of electrical gadgets (including TV receivers) that pollute the radio spectrum. If our young hopeful takes the trouble to learn the Morse code he will find a new and satisfying field in the radio amateur transmissions, provided the Morse is being sent at a readable speed and not by someone using an electronic key with no correct spacing between letters. This is particularly true at weekends when the contests usually take place. On these occasions most good manners disappear and nothing of interest is transmitted. How long the Morse code will survive is questionable now that it is no longer a requirement for the amateur licence and few others use it. He cannot get the news from Reuters before it is broadcast by the BBC, as we used to, and he will not find 3-letter-callsign stations sending 5-letter coded messages.

Amongst all the clamour he may find some clandestine speech or Morse signals, which no doubt GCHQ already know about, so I would not suggest placing the log sheets in a double envelope and posting them to Cheltenham. Perhaps, sadly, the computer has taken the place of radio as a hobby but the young hopeful can still couple his computer to a short-wave receiver and take data transmissions which may produce ham-chat, pictures or weather maps. But the soldering iron (tool?) has become neglected. However there is pleasure to be had in constructing simple measuring instruments. Examples are: grid (or base) dip meters, absorption wave meters, measuring bridges, aerial tuning units, Morse Code oscillator etc. A Puff meter, that I made many years ago, gets regular use and measures capacitors down to 10pF accurately at a small fraction of the cost of a commercial instrument.

Take heart. (Things you have no desire to know).

Having a particular interest in the human pump, I find numerous fascinating facts about the circulation of the blood, written by that rare bird a medical physicist [Vital Circuits by Steven Vogel]. At rest the heart's output is 1.3 watts, increasing to 8 watts during exercise, giving rise to a blood flow of 6 feet per second in the aorta. It has a power/weight ratio 30 times better than the best internal combustion engine. On average we each generate at least 80 watts at rest, which may account for the temperature experienced in our room ‘Red One’ sometimes. (60 x 80 = 4.8 kW)

Contact : telephone 01273 205408

 Bob (Noz) King g3ase @ onetel . com 01480 463129

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