Radschool Association Magazine

Vol 54

Page 14

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Radschool Reunion.

On the Friday and Saturday 22^nd and 23^rd April, members of the Radschool Association got together for a reunion in Brisbane.

That full-on get together was organised by John Broughton and I’m sure all those that attended and who had such a great time would agree that we owe John a great big thank you. Not a lot know the amount of work John put in to make the weekend such a success. He had spent many months on the preparation, so much in fact that wife Josey felt like a reunion widow. (No truth in the rumour she hopes John will organise another one soon!)

As he lives in Newcastle, he had to travel to Brisbane on many occasions, all at his own expense, sometimes he flew, others he drove and all the while he was hitting on potential sponsors to help with the finances. He managed to talk Kedron Wavell Services Club, Kedron Wavell RSL Sub Branch and Jaycar to contribute significantly to the occasion and their contributions allowed members to attend at reduced costs. A big thank you to them too.

The weekend began with a trip to Airbus at Brisbane Airport to have a look over their amazing facilities. John Liaised with Ian Pilbeam (right) who is the Director of Rotary Wing Maintenance with Airbus and who took the troops under his wing and gave them the royal tour. Ian is an old Radio brat, and was on 31 Appy back in 1978. Thanks Ian.

Those that nominated for this tour assembled at the Services Club at midday on Friday and through car-pooling travelled out to Eagle Farm for a very interesting afternoon.

On Friday evening at 6.00pm, about 110 blokes with their ladies assembled at the Kittyhawk room at the Kedron Wavell Services club (KWSC) for the “Meet and Greet”. John had begged, borrowed and stolen a bunch of old radios and other memorabilia from here, there and everywhere and this was set out on tables at the back of the room.

Looking over these old bits of gear makes you realise the huge advancement that has taken place in the electronics game since we all left Radschool which really wasn’t all that long ago. You wonder what equipment our grandkids will be using in the next 40-50 years.

One piece of equipment that most could remember was the trusty old 10 channel, crystal controlled VHF transceiver, theTR1936. Made by STC in the UK, it was fitted to the Winjeel and (I think) the vampire and possibly other aircraft as well. Whenever an aircraft was tasked to fly to another base, some of the crystals would need to be changed so the aircraft could communicate with ATC along the way. From memory tuning the old set wasn’t all that difficult though I doubt if I could do it today.

The evening was opened by Tony Axelsen, the President of the KWSC who welcomed everyone to the event and who read the Ode at 7.00pm, after which followed some serious talking and drinking including many tall tales and lots of “remember whens”.

The following photos have been “crunched” to allow them to open faster, you can get the HD versions which you can download should you wish, by clicking each photo.

All names are left to right.

Gate keeper for the evening was Sue Trimmer. Sue volunteered her time to help John with the preparations for the weekend and for that we thank her also.

The club went out of its way to make the evening as pleasant and as appealing as possible, the Kittyhawk room was very tastefully decorated and if you're thinking of having a "do" you couldn't do better than to hold it there.