Wireless Mechanics Course

By the end of 1953 I was already beginning to feel like an old hand in the RAF even though I was only halfway through the wireless mechanics course. Just before the Christmas break there was some course reorganisation. In the intermediate examinations 11 of our course had failed and several others passed by the skin of their teeth. The five who had done best on our course, which included me, were transferred to 159B, which had started out with those who already had some knowledge of wireless and radar, while several of 159B who were not doing so well were transferred to 159A.

I was still writing a daily diary but for Christmas I was no longer given the Schoolboys Diary; instead I got the Wireless World Diary. This diary listed all manner of very useful data such as pages and pages of thermionic valve base connections and a lengthy section on short-wave coil design. There was also half a page listing ‘comprehensive’ UK television channel and transmitter information. It’s interesting to note that within the UK only five pairs of frequencies, in the 41 to 68 megacycles per second (later known as MHZ) range, were used to cover the entire United Kingdom and there were only 12 transmitters listed. New Year’s Day was not a holiday – not in the RAF anyway. We started lessons on aerial erection that day and I noted that there was a 54 ft aerial “just for classes to pull up and down”. Fortunately we were not required to climb it!

I found that work progressed at a faster pace now that we’d lost the weaker members of our original course. I thrived on it and enjoyed virtually every lesson. Eventually we moved away from the theoretical stuff and started working on real equipments that we could expect to meet when we got to our first operational station. The equipments we concentrated on were the T1509 medium-powered short wave transmitter and its partner the receiver R1475. Later we moved onto the VHF transmitter T1131 and the VHF receiver R1392. We were told that most of us were likely to be posted to airfields where these VHF equipments were used for communicating at short range with aircraft. When we’d learned the basics we were individually presented with equipment that had faults deliberately embedded and it was our job to identify and rectify them.

We were warned that the two transmitters had high voltages inside and so we were given lessons on resuscitation from electrical shock, which seemed rather dramatic. One of the problems with rectifying faults on the transmitters was that in order to diagnose certain faults it was necessary to have the HT (high tension) switched on even though the training manuals stated emphatically that no work should be undertaken inside the equipment while the power was on. There were built-in safety devices to prevent that. To get at the insides of the T1509, for example, you had to open the five-foot high rear door of the transmitter, which automatically released a micro-switch at the base, which in turn switched off the HT. Our sergeant instructor explained a technique to get round that which would probably not be acceptable to today’s Health and Safety officers: “Always stand on the cork insulating mat and keep one hand in a trouser pocket – that’s probably the only time you will ever be ordered to put your hand in your pocket in the RAF. Jam foot on the micro switch at the base of the transmitter – that keeps the HT on. Then you can work on the transmitter with your other hand without any danger because there’ll be no path to earth across your body.”

To prove his point he touched the high voltage aerial output of the transmitter while it was fully functioning. We were very impressed. However, his teaching was not foolproof, as I was to discover to my pain and cost some months later in Ceylon when I received the full 1,200 volts from a T1509 HT connection. I was strictly adhering to the Locking sergeant’s advice but unfortunately, while reaching into the depths of the transmitter to adjust a variable capacitor, the fingers and wrist of my ‘working’ hand managed to form a short circuit to ground between a 1,200 volt terminal and the metal chassis of the transmitter. There was a flash and I was hurled back against a wall, slithered to the floor, and passed out. The base micro-switch sprang open as I fell and the power to the transmitter was automatically cut off. There was no-one else in the transmitter room at the time, and that would doubtless be against the Health & Safety rules these days, so no-one had seen what had happened. After a few minutes I resumed work on the transmitter – after waiting for the power supplies to build up again! I never mentioned that shock to anyone but I still have a scar, now faded,  on my wrist as a memento of it.

The final examinations were in early March. I did well with over 80% in all the written and practical tests and I’d come second overall to Denis ‘Sparky’ Wale. He’d been a wireless operator in the Merchant Navy before signing on as a regular in the RAF. Sparky was told that he would be going straight onto the 8-month long Wireless Fitters’ course starting one week later. “Never volunteer for anything” was a general rule in the RAF but “if you don’t ask, you won’t get” seemed more important to me at the time. I went to see Flight Sergeant Bettell, who was in charge of our flight, and asked him if I could move straight onto the fitters’ course. He said he would speak to the Trade Testing Officer and later in the day, to my great pleasure, I was told that I would go on the next fitters course. Sparky and I were sent on immediate leave for eight days leave.

Before going on that unexpected leave, I proudly sewed the ‘sparks’ badge onto the sleeve on my uniform jacket. The sparks badge goes back to the very earliest days of the RAF when an airman was not allowed to speak directly to an officer. Perish the thought that a lowly airman should have the temerity to address an officer unbidden! Only NCOs were permitted to do so. However, as wireless telegraphy was rapidly introduced into the Service, it was often necessary for airmen to approach an officer directly with an important signal. The sparks badge was introduced as the visible sign that an airman was authorised to go directly to an officer and speak. It was later decreed that all airmen who had passed their wireless trade test should wear the sparks badge.

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