The West of Scotland Amateur Radio Society — WELCOME
………In late August, amateur radio enthusiast Yukio Sakurai (59) from Matsuyama, Osaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, accidentally received a distress signal for a small boat drifting off the coast of Niigata Prefecture, and gathered information in collaboration with other enthusiasts. It was revealed on the 6th that the Niigata Coast Guard (Niigata City) helped two crew members………….Read MORE ………….
QSL card for reception of a transmission from Radio Prague on 7 May 1964. ORL is the transmitter call sign.
Live, off-air, recording of the broadcast of two special sequential half-hour programs of Radio Prague International celebrating its 85th anniversary. The programs were broadcast via WRMI, Radio Miami International, using a transmitter at Okeechobee, Florida, on 31 August 2021 from 21:00 to 22:00 UTC on a shortwave frequency of 15770 kHz. The listed transmitter power is 100 kW with an antenna beam azimuth of 44°. The recording includes WRMI station identifications.
Czech Radio officially began its international service on 31 August 1936. Eventually, the service became known as Radio Prague, then for a brief time in the 1990s as Radio Czechoslovakia International and most recently as Radio Prague International. Radio Prague International is mostly an on-line service now with its own transmitters having been shut down on 31 January 2011. It continued to broadcast over the single WRMI transmitter in Miami and currently relays its daily programs in English, French, and Spanish using the WRMI transmitter complex in Okeechobee.
The special anniversary programs include archival recordings, interviews, and comments from listeners. The first half-hour program is in English followed by a second half-hour program in French.
The broadcast via WRMI was received outdoors on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver in AM mode with 2.3 kHz filtering and a Tecsun AN-03L 7-metre wire antenna strung to a nearby tree in Hanwell (just outside Fredericton), New Brunswick, Canada. Reception was mostly quite good.
By Heather Holland <zs6ye.yl@gmail.com>
Florence Violet McKenzie OBE (nee Wallace) A2GA/VK2FV/VK2GA
Probably the best known lady amateur operator in Australia is Florence McKenzie (nee Wallace). Born in 1891, she became Australia’s first tertiary educated female electrical engineer, and opened a wireless/electrical shop in Royal Arcade Sydney in 1921. In 1925, Florence obtained her amateur licence and the callsign A2GA in 1925, our first known licenced lady amateur.
During 1922 Florence was involved with starting the Wireless Weekly magazine, along with three other people. This magazine later morphed into Radio and Hobbies and later still, Electronics Australia. The 1948 call book lists her as VK2FV which lapsed about 1959. Regaining interest in amateur radio in 1979, Florence again became 2GA, this time VK2GA, which she held until her death in 1982. In the mid 1930s Florence established the Electrical Association for Women which appears to have been formed mainly to teach women how to use electrical appliances in the home; she also wrote a cookery book for electric stoves, when none were available.
When Florence realised that war was imminent, “Mrs. Mac” as she was fondly known, became acutely aware of the need for radio communications as part of our defence, and the need for people trained in Morse code. She established a no-charge training school in a loft near her shop. Her students were initially, predominantly women and the school became known as the Women’s Emergency Signaling Corps. (W.E.S.C.) During 1940, in response to a newspaper advertisement by the Navy, appealing for trained amateurs to enlist as telegraphists, she offered her trainees. The Naval Director of Signals and Communications recommended to the Naval Board that they be employed at shore establishments and fourteen selected applicants took up their duties at the Harman Wireless Station in Canberra. From this beginning the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS) was established in 1941. It grew to a peak of 105 officers and 2,518 ratings during the war.
Mrs. Mac trained the women to teach the thousands of men who wanted a skill to offer the Services. She could also see that if there were women in the services, who were competent in communication, it would free the men for other duties. In her valedictory published in Ditty Box, the ex WRANS magazine for June 1982, she was reported as being “eventually responsible for training more than 12000 servicemen”! American servicemen who were based in Australia were sent to Mrs. Mac for refresher courses. Initially skeptical, they were soon won over by her training methods. Continuing after the war, she trained many QANTAS pilots in Morse code.
Florence McKenzie was awarded an OBE in 1950 and became a SK in 1982 (2021-6-14 ALARA Column A.R. Issue 4 – Jen VK3WQ
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