Watson's Radio Club
SK - GM3BCD Tom Simpson (1918 - 2014)
​
​
​
​
​
Originally from Hawick, Tom Simpson was a teacher in the Technical Department at Watson's. First licensed as GM3BCD in 1947 after war service, he used his considerable practical skills to construct a series of increasingly effective transmitters and aerials capable of providing DX (worldwide) contacts, subject to ionospheric conditions.
​
​
​
​
​
​
Tom operating the club station about 1958.
Standing: Robin Brown, Alec Blanc, James Speirs, Michael Wright, Gilbert Williamson and George Czekalowski. Sitting are Victor Muir and John Gordon, and of course John Hughes GM3LCP standing at the rear. The receiver is a CR100.
​
As soon as they had finished lunch, and after John Hughes' technical talks after school on club meeting days, Radio Club members would head for the radio shack under the school hall to listen to Tom working the world.
​
Click for shorter GM3BCD SK on Lothians Radio Society site.
​
Many thanks to Tom's younger son Tommy for a number of the photographs below.
Tom standing centre at NFD station GM8MQ/P, possibly at Hawick.
Date not known, possibly pre-war.
Tom's Short Wave Listener (SWL) QSL card. BRS = British Receiving Station.
Tom in wartime Royal Signals uniform.
After war service, Tom was licensed as GM3BCD in 1947. His QSL card was printed from an engraved wooden block
Tom operating the radio club station in about 1956 in the basement under the hall.
L-R: (Unknown), John Hughes GM3LCP, John Kelly (later GM3POK), Tom GM3BCD.
The receiver looks like a BC-342. The home-constructed transmitter may have been crystal-controlled. The antenna at that time was a V-beam pointing west to the USA, fed with open-wire feeder (ladder-line).
Tom registered the school station as the principal licence address for GM3BCD.
He also operated from his home in Braid Road on VHF / UHF using beautifully built equipment.
Press photograph taken for the contact with the Congo missionary station 9Q5HF in 1961.
L-R: Mike Senior GM3PAK, Tom GM3BCD, John Hughes GM3LCP, Alan Masson GM3PSP.
Tom operating in the 21/28MHz contest in 1962.
L-R: David Guest (later GM3TFY), John Hughes GM3LCP, Mike Senior GM3PAK, George Millar GM3UM (Watsonian), Tom GM3BCD.
The station now consisted of an Eddystone 750 receiver and the 150W (full-power) transmitter, constructed by Tom, used a Geloso VFO feeding an 813 power amplifier valve in Class-C, modulated by a pair of 807s in Class-B zero bias. The high voltage power supply for the PA employed a pair of large mercury-vapour valves which flashed brightly and impressively on modulation peaks. Operation was principally on 15m and 10m and much impressive DX was worked during the lunchtime break and in the late-afternoons after school. The writer remembers VK stations (Australia) coming in at 5&9 (loud and clear). This was around the time of a sunspot maximum.
Cubical quad antenna for 21 & 28MHz similar to the one used at Watson's. It was manufactured by Jim McCaig of the Forth Motor Co. of Cockenzie and donated to the club by him. Tom installed it, with rotator, on the school roof at 80 ft above ground, giving superb performance for working DX.
Tom was presented with the Jock Kyle Trophy for VHF/UHF achievement in Scotland
by RSGB President Geoff Stone G3FZL at the Scottish VHF Convention in 1969.
Tom received an MBE from the Queen on 15th June 1996 for his 44 years' service to the British Talking Book Service for the Blind. He competed 52 years' service in 2005.
Tom with his wife Joan and younger son Tommy outside Buckingham Palace after receiving his MBE.
Tom in 2010 after moving from Braid Road to Myreside.
Tom died on 25th October 2014 at the age of 96. He is buried with his wife Joan in Morningside Cemetery (location in red).
​
Rather appropriately, the grave of Sir Edward Appleton, the discoverer of the ionosphere, is located nearby, in section N-M on the west side of the cemetery.
