Joy 1984

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Rare chat for radio’s kindred spirits

Radio amateurs, from left, Joe Brown, of New Town, Joy Batchler, of Sandy Bay and Edgar Nicholls, of Midway Point, with

the sort of home-made transmitter used more than 50 years ago when they started.

By MARGARETTA POS

WHEN you've been talking
talking through the air to like-
minded spirits for “hundreds”
of years, it’s a shock to meet in
the flesh.

But it was a pleasant occa-
sion yesterday when 13 mem-
bers of the Radio Amateur Old
Timers Club met in Hobart for
lunch.

To be admitted to the club,
members must have been
qualified radio amateurs for
25 years — and just four of the
Old Timers had chalked up
more than 50 years each.

All are members of the Tas-
manian branch of the Wireless
Institute of Australia — the
world’s oldest amateur radio
society.

“We chat to each other and
to others all over the world,”

. ae

said Mr Edgar Nicholls of Mid-
way Point — who has had 56
years on the air.

“And outside the world —
we bounce off the moon,”
chipped in Mr Lew Jarvis of
Lenah Valley.

When Mrs Joy Batchler of
Sandy Bay got her licence in
1936, she was one of only six
female radio amateurs in Aus-
tralia — although she admits
to being a pirate first as did
Mr Joe Brown of New Town.

“So the first day I was
licensed I went on the amateur
frequency inviting people to
talk to me and the sergeant
major at Anglesea Barracks
roared: “Get off the air you
flaming pirate!”

Radio amateurs, who are
adept at morse code, some-

times find themselves in-
volved in search and rescue
operations.

Mr Jarvis saved a man at
the end of his tether in Cape
York in 1978, after he picked
up a whistled morse code sig-
nal for help.

The man didn’t have a key
and whistled a desperate mes-
sage to switch to another fre-
quency.

For technical reasons he
couldn’t speak on the first
frequency Mr Jarvis had pick-
ed up.

Mr Jarvis likes talking to
people all over the world for
the sheer fun of it but most of
all he enjoys chatting to his
son, Brian, also a radio
amateur — Brian is an
astronomer based in a moun-
tainous region of Chile.