Continued - Part 8
RAF Gan - Amateur Radio
In April 1958 Cpl. Barry Bonser the RAF Far East travelling radio trouble-shooter from RAF Seletar in Singapore arrived in Gan to install and service some ground-based radio equipment. As a licensed radio amateur he took the opportunity to get the Maldives on the air by bringing with him an amateur bands transmitter and a receiver.
In 1958 in the amateur radio world the Maldives was a ’new country’ i.e. it had not before had a licensed operator operating an amateur radio station, and as such contacts with Barry were much sought after — in the ‘Ham’ world the more contacts you make, the higher your status. Being a Singapore licensed Ham, Barry was able to use his Singapore callsign with the Maldives suffix VS9, which made his operating in the Maldives legal. He operated as VS1BB/VS9 (Barry’s Singapore callsign with the suffix VS9 for operation in the Maldives) and was overwhelmed with contacts from around the world. In amateur radio terms Barry’s visit was a resounding success with well over 1,000 contacts being made with fellow radio amateurs during his short visit.
Barry (right), me (left).
As a radio operator myself I was keen to help and make Barry Bonser’s amateur radio activities at Gan a success and helped him as much as possible. Whilst he was at Gan, I together with another Ham operator (Sgt Don Tranmer) discussed with Barry the possibility of being ’gifted’ from his contacts in the States a suitable transmitter and receiver to establish an R.A.F. Amateur radio club (station) at Gan. Barry was able to arrange for an AR88 radio receiver and a Heathkit 50-watt CW and AM radio transmitter to be donated to Gan for use by R.A.F. radio amateurs as an R.A.F. amateur radio club station. However, there was one small snag — we couldn’t use this equipment until we had been allocated an official Maldive Islands callsign.
Me operating as VS9MA — July 1958. AR88 radio receiver on the left, Heathkit CW (Morse code) and AM (voice) transmitter on the right and an antenna tuning unit on top of the transmitter. By present day standards primitive, but at the time top class equipment.
With considerable difficulty and following constant reminders (at our instigation), from the Officer Commanding RAF Gan, around June/July 1958 Mr Didi the Maldivian government representative on Gan finally received permission from the capital Male for the use of callsign VS9MA as the radio callsign for the RAF Gan amateur radio club. With this permission we started operating.
Operating VS9MA with Sgt. Don Tranmer (background). We were the first operators of the R.A.F. Gan Amateur radio club station callsign VS9MA. When making voice contacts we would sometimes hold the microphone by the window to broadcast the sound of breaking waves, being only 6ft away from the water this was easy to do and made our contacts very envious! - below
One of the prized VS9MA QSL cards which was sent out to confirm a contact with another amateur radio station, in this case G6GH in the UK on 24th July 1958. Operator’s name ‘Don’ (Tranmer). It showed the contact was on 21MHz with a transmitter power of 50 watts into a Long Wire antenna.