Watson's Radio Club

July 1060 - Contacts with Missionaries in Congo Crisis

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              Mike Senior (later GM3PAK), Tom Simpson GM3BCD, John Hughes GM3LCP, Alan Masson (later GM3PSP)

                                                             (Photo from one of the newspaper articles below).

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Real excitement occurred in July 1960 when one afternoon GM3BCD made a CQ call on 15m and was called by station 9Q5HF at Linga in the Congo. This was during the Congo crisis and the operator Bill explained that he was a member of a missionary group and requested that we telephone his HQ in London to tell them that they were safe as they were having unreliable communications with Kampala. With some slight 'complications' around licence conditions on handling third-party messages this was done, and was confirmed to 9Q5HF the following afternoon and we found ourselves in the newspapers with headlines such as:

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"School 'hams' give vital link with Congo" (Scottish Daily Mail, 15 July 1960)

"Edinburgh radio club in touch with missionaries" (Ed. Evening News, 15 July 1960)

"Trouble nears Congo mission - in radio contact with school" (Scotsman,16 July 1960)

(See clips below)

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Unfortunately the authorities in the Congo confiscated Bill's equipment about a week later and operation ceased.

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Decades later, your scribe, then W2/G3PSP, living and working with Kodak in Rochester NY, happened to work Bill using his American callsign xxxxxx in Philadelphia PA. When he mentioned his time in the Congo all became clear. He checked his logbook and managed to find the original QSOs with GM3BCD.

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