Introduction 1. Operation "SILLITOE" was a vintage radio activity which was undertaken to mark the 60th anniversary of the arrival in Canada of the plans for the Wireless Set No. 19. During the summer of 1941, Mr. Sydney Sillitoe, an employee of Northern Electric, travelled to England to collect necessary information so that the set could be manufactured in Canada. He returned to Canada in July 1941 and, with the assistance of a small technical team, began the task of tooling up for mass production. By Christmas the production line was completed and Canadian made Mk II sets were being produced. 2. In addition to his work on the W.S. No. 19, Mr. Sillitoe had been on the design team for the RCAF general purpose airborne radio set - the AT1/AR2. That set was designed from scratch in a project that required an 18 hour a day effort for several months. It is believed that this effort occured in 1939 as the first known airborne use of the AT1/AR2 was on 24 January 1940. (Note: the W.S. No. 19 Gp marked the 60th anniversary of that event by sending a commemorative message to AVM (ret'd) McBurney, wartime Director of Signals for the RCAF). 3. To recognize the wartime efforts of Mr. Sillitoe, it was decided that members of the Wireless Set No. 19 Group would use both the AT1/AR2 and the W.S. No. 19 to pass a commemorative message. Discussion 4. The commemorative message (Annex A) was transmitted from VA3ORP (D. Lawrence; Kingston, ON) using AT1 (s.n. 2802) and AR2 (s.n. 3559). The message was received by VE3CBK (C. Bisaillion; Ottawa, ON) using a W.S. No. 19 Mk III (s.n. C83399). That message, with a covering letter and some photographs was then sent by mail to Mr. Sillitoe in Surrey, BC. Mr. Sillitoe replied to VE3CBK by mail on 20 July. From his letter, VE3CBK prepared a reply which was transmitted to VA3ORP on 1 August (Annex D). 5. In addition to the stations noted above, several of the W.S. No. 19 Gp outstations copied the messages and sent additional copies to Mr. Sillitoe. The original message was copied by VE3CSJ (J. Dicker; Ottawa, ON), VE3BBN (D. Wilson; Niagara Falls, ON) and W1GDZ (J. Ull; Fairfield, CT). The reply message was copied by VE3BBN (D. Wilson; Niagara Falls, ON) and C. Counselman; W1HIS, Boston, MA). 6. A summary of the event was the subject of an interview on Radio Canada International's "Maple Leaf Mailbag" programme which is hosted by Marc Montgomery on 30 July 2001 (transcript attached as (Annex E) This added publicity was most welcome and resulted in a number of email comments. Technical Issues 7. No particular technical difficulties were encountered with this operation. Propagation was very poor during the first attempt to pass the second message. This was transmitted the next day without trouble. The AT1 failed after the original message had been sent, however the fault was quickly traced to a stuck dynamotor brush. Net control was fully satisfactory using normal Group procedures although outstations spent a long time monitoring while the long messages were transmitted and confirmed. Some additional training might be useful to ensure that all outstations are familiar with formal message traffic format and procedures. Conclusions and Recommendations 8. The event is considered a complete success. Group members articipated in some interesting activity and it was a good opportunity to put vintage gear on-air. There seemed to be some interest in developing skill in message handling. 9. Of greatest importance is that the Group was able to mark a significant anniversary and to provide long overdue recognition to one of Canada's radio pioneers. The effort was greatly appreciated by Mr. Sillitoe. David Lawrence, VA3ORP W.S. No. 19 Gp/M.A.M.H. 1309 Sunbury Rd, R.R. #2 Inverary, Ontario Canada K0H 1X0 RELATED ITEMSPhoto of Sydney Sillitoe (left) with Dave Lawrence
Photo of Sydney Sillitoe with Chris Bisaillion