I arrived in Great Britain in May 1953 by way of New York and Southampton. I made the trip by troop ship. Another event I don't want to do again. I was assigned to the base operations squadron at RAF Burtonwood in Lancashire County. The base was located midway between Liverpool and Manchester.

While there, I had my first exposure to ham radio. A British born GI, G3HPL, was putting together a ham station under the auspices of Special Services. A few of us helpled him during our time off. We made spreaders for the rhombic antenna feedline using plywood and parafin. We were not allowed to operate the radio station due to Brtiish PTT rules, but managed a little bootlegging. Follows a photo I found in my shoebox.

The station equipment is an old BC-610-E with speech amp and a National NC-88 (I think).

I was transferred from England to Saudi Arabia in May of 1954. Return to the K7JJ home page

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