Your say!

RAAF Williams amateur radio club, Laverton

We received the following from Chris Whitefield who asked if we’d print the following for him.

"My name is Chris Whitefield, I am the current President of the RAAF Williams Amateur Radio Club. I have been searching the history of the Club or more specifically for the conception of the call sign VK3APP which was assigned to RAAF Frognall. I did get a brief email from Ivan Spiller who was a apprentice at Frognall, he included a picture of the radio station at Frognall. I am an Ex seviceman SGT CLKSPLY (1981-2001) but now a member of the Australian Public Service ASO4 at Building L474 which was the old RAD School. Any help or direction would be appreciated, I have started a History Page on our Club's Website however it is no where complete. www.vk3app.com."

Peter Holmes from Tassie writes re the article on Frognell (the Castle) which we had in our last edition. He says:

"Back in 1948 I was relieving Duty Mech at Frognell. The ground floor of the Castle was used as offices and equipment stores. It was also the sending & receiving headquarters for No 1 Transmitters at Laverton (Pt Cook Rd) and No 1 Receivers at Werribee. Up stairs were the officer’s quarters and their Mess. The brats were out in the old WAAAF quarters. Jimmie Benson, mate of Toby Paine’s, was one of the first there, and when he finished he was posted to radio section at ARDU, 1951 I think. I was later informed by Toby that he retired as an Air Commodore."

Well Peter-it looks like we owe Allan George and the brats an apology.

Peter Chappelow wrote: I’m dropping you a line because of a couple of items in your last issue that caught my attention. The death of Geoff Chapman was a major shock as he had worked for me on the FA-18 introduction at Williamtown in the mid 80s and he always seemed larger than life. A really enthusiastic and switched on character and it was the RAAF’s loss when he announced that he was "heading home to Qld" and the Telstra job in Townsville. There was another item in which someone asked where Jim "Jock" Storer was these days. Unfortunately, I heard that Jock died of a melanoma at Yamba NSW about 6 years ago. When he left the RAAF he bought 20-30 acres of dirt in the centre of the Pokolbin wine country (before it became famous). Anyway, Jock grew wine for many years before deciding to cash out and relocate to Yamba. What do you think he did in Yamba - buy the local bottle shop of course! Jock lived life to the fullest and was one of those characters you meet once in a lifetime.

Peter-we agree wholeheartedly For those interested in the detail, the ATSB report on Geoff’s accident can be found at http://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/occurs/occurs_detail.cfm?ID=357. tb

Ted Washbrook from the West saw the note we had from Niall Maquire last edition and writes. "The CPN-4 (known to all who worked on the thing as the Beast) was a GCA radar and used by the RAAF at Williamtown, Pearce and Amberley and there was another one bought as a spare and from memory it was kept at Darwin. It was a pretty impressive thing for it's day, it had 3 bays and each one could use the search or the precision function but only one could be the control bay and I think it was switchable. All bays had VHF and UHF comms but it must have been modified through the years. The last CPN-4 was turned off at Williamtown in 1977. I don't recall the magnetron or the klystron types though-sorry".

Suzy and Wayne Smith, celebrating their 32nd wedding anniversary at the Reunion in March 2001, congratulations to them and to the Renshaws.

Wayne Smith, ex 38RTC from way back, sent us quite a few photos of our recent reunion, along with a note. He says: "Thanks for a most memorable weekend. Suzy and I, along with all the others I have spoken to since our get together, agree that the whole week-end was great. To catch up with people, after almost 30 years in some cases, was terrific. The weekend was doubly memorable for Suzy and myself and Geoff and Colleen Renshaw as we both celebrated wedding anniversaries, our 32nd and their 31st. Once again, thanks for the memorable event, and roll on 2003"

Thanks Wayne, and congrats also to Geoff and Colleen Renshaw on their 32nd this year. Plans for the do in 2003 are well under way, and there will be more on that soon. It’s funny though-most people we know and knock around with have been married now for yonks - how can that be when they reckon that 60% of all marriages fail, is it just that as old "baggers" we stick together, or are the stats a bit wrong. Dunno

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