RadCom columnist recognised

Pat Hawker, G3VA, who has written the RadCom ‘Technical Topics’ pages for almost 50 years non-stop, was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s recent Birthday Honours List.

Born in Minehead, Somerset in 1922, his schoolboy interest in radio never left him, and he heard his first amateur station on 20m in the Autumn of 1935.

While still 14, he obtained the ‘artificial aerial’ licence 2BUH. He became G3VA in October 1938, at the then minimum age of 16 years.

In the spring of 1940, he became a Voluntary Interceptor, and shortly after was recruited into a new military unit, SCU3. Many more wartime posts followed, including a stint at Hanslope Park.

After the war, he became an assistant to John Clarricoats, General Secretary of the RSGB. A few years later, he was editing the many volumes of Radio & Television Service, Radio & Television Engineer’s Reference Book, laying the foundations of a technical career with the Independent Broadcasting Authority, and later still as the respected writer of ‘Technical Topics’, for which he is still world-renowned.

Source: GB2RS News - Courtesy of the RSGB