Watson's Radio Club

1930s - Pre-WWII

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The Radio Club at Watson's was started by physics teacher Bill 'Dizzy' Lyall in the late-1930s prior to WWII although he was not a licensed amateur. The club was suspended during the war while Mr Lyall served in the RAF. On his return in 1946 he restarted it, and  was reported to have given a very interesting lecture about Radar from his wartime experience.

The Radio Club was handed it over to John Hughes (not yet licensed as GM3LCP) when he arrived at Watson's in 1947 also to teach physics, having served in the Royal Signals.

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Bill 'Dizzy' Lyall about 1960

(candid shot by A. Masson during physics lesson!)

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The earliest known licensee at Watson's was science teacher William Anderson G6AF (no regional letters in those days) in the 1930s. No other information.

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Gordon Rankin (SK-2014) attended Watson's in the 1930s and must have obtained the 'Artificial Aerial' Licence 2AIK before WWII as he was issued with the callsign GM2AIK after the war, with its distinctive number 2. An AA licence permitted the holder to conduct experiments with transmitters whose output was fed into an artificial aerial or 'dummy load' as they are now known, to avoid any radiation of a signal. It seems that sometimes there was some leakage of signal out to the world!

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                                   Gordon Rankin ex-GM2AIK in 2004

 

Gordon went on to become the Engineer in Charge at BBC Edinburgh and later worked in the BBC World Service. 

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In 1961, while still at Edinburgh, Gordon received a letter from the secretary of the Watson's Radio Club (your scribe) reporting spurious sidebands on the local Third Programme transmission on 647kc/s (as we said then) in the Medium Wave Band, and sent the following reply which the holder has treasured ever since! 

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