THE GREAT GALLERY

ROOM 45

21 SIGNAL REGIMENT (AS) COLERNE
IN THE TRAINING WING
Special Event callsigns - GB6ØVED, GB4VJD, GB4VED

GW4XKE

Some of you will recall those days over 60 years ago - VE Day & VJ Day in May and August 1945 respectively, and now we celebrate the 60th Anniversary.
So with the support of the CO Lt Col "Ossie" D. G. Halstead of 2l Signal Regiment (AS) Colerne, Wiltshire and 2 I/c Major "Butch" C. A. Maycock, O/c Training Wing Captain "Nat" N. Baker and Officer Manager Eilean Robinson an advance party of one, to wit Dennis GW4XKE, arrived at Colerne on a very damp, overcast morning on the 1st June 2005 to set up a station in Room 8 at the Training Wing testing the TS53OS, AT230 & SP230 into the dummy load until we could get the aerials up.
The next arrival was crew member John S. Dixon MØBZG who made an error en route, took a wrong turning approaching Oxford from his home in Wyberton, Lincolnshire and did not arrive until late afternoon with 40 extra miles added to the distance he had already travelled (by car this time and not his trusty motor bike).
We set to work to move two of the three masts from the nested position they were in but found that an equipment box had not been left with the sledge hammer to remove the guy stakes and hammer them into the new mast area positions. Not to be thwarted, a large rock was located, one side was painted white we wondered why???!! Yes, where have we done or seen this before? The two masts were re-sited, raised and guyed though the large rock cum hammer finally disintegrated but not before the guy stakes had been re-positioned. A l32ft top doublet was raised North/South on the two 50ft masts for Room 8 with a G5RV as an inverted-V on the third mast for room 10 pending the arrival of Hasso G4BYJ and Joyce Eeseman.

GW4XKE and G4BYJ

Finally, to complete the team, Peter Fletcher GØRGB with his son Ken G8TDX set up their station for the higher frequency bands. To this end, once again Peter brought with him his home brew "G8TDW Spider Special Vertical" to use with his TS830S which he used last year and earlier to such good DX effect and one has only to look at his station log to appreciate this. It was placed in a suitable, in fact a very prominent location well away from the other aerials much to the amusement of passing members of the Regiment with such printable remarks, as "Good Heavens! What on earth is THAT? Are the Darleks expected? Is it a rocket launcher??" No it's a very efficient amateur band vertical aerial for the higher frequencies!

The Spider and GØRGB

Ken got out his very expensive, sophisticated digital camera and went round on a photo shoot. The results of this can be seen on his website (http://www.tcpage.f9.co.uk/colerne) if you care to have a look.

Thank you all those stations who called us at the Training Wing, Colerne - over 600 in the 5 active days of operation - with apology to those who did not get through the pile-up or due to the very poor conditions that we have all been experiencing for quite some time. Regards to all the Short Wave Listeners who sent reports and cards and at the date of this report all QSL cards have been completed and dispatched.
A final word of thanks to those who travelled quite a distance at their own expense with equipment to man and operate the 3 Stations during the 5 days of actual operation as a team effort, without whom we could not have activated these callsigns.

The team: Ken G8TDX, Peter G0RGB, Dennis GW4XKE and John M0BZG

G8TDX, GØRGB, GW4XKE, MØBZG

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