Overview
Making Waves: Admiral Mountbatten's Radio Seac 1945-49
Full Product Details
Author: Eric Hitchcock
Publisher: Helion & Company
Imprint: Helion & Company
Volume: No. 6
ISBN: 9781906033958
ISBN 10: 1906033951
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 31 March 2014
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
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Reviews
... a fascinating blend of the politics of setting up in Ceylon under the auspices of Admiral Mountbatten's South East Asia Command rather than at GHQ India in Delhi, the technicalities of radio broadcasting and the history of the station itself. --Bulletin of the Military Historical Society
""" ... a fascinating blend of the politics of setting up in Ceylon under the auspices of Admiral Mountbatten's South East Asia Command rather than at GHQ India in Delhi, the technicalities of radio broadcasting and the history of the station itself.""-- ""Bulletin of the Military Historical Society"""
Author Information
Eric Hitchcock was fortunate in having a physics master at school who made electricity and magnetism fascinating. On leaving school he went to work for a high street bank, and took up radio construction as a hobby. Second-hand components were bought from junk shops in wartime London, and a simple shortwave receiver was eventually made to work. He was called up in the summer of 1944, and was fortunate in being sent on a six-month wireless mechanics course in the Royal Signals, followed by nine weeks' experience at the BBC transmitting station at Skelton, in what is now Cumbria. With 11 other similarly trained men he was introduced to the same model Marconi shortwave transmitter that was being installed in a purpose-built transmitter about 20 miles from Colombo in Ceylon. The men were flown to India in a Dakota, to operate and maintain this and other transmitters which carried Radio SEAC's programmes. / In 1947 he was demobilised, after sailing up the Mersey on SS Devonshire. He returned to the bank, but was moved in the 1960s to a department where he helped design computer systems for early applications such as payroll and personnel records. / Several of his SEAC friends became radio amateurs, but listening to the monitor speaker in the transmitter hall for many hours on most days encouraged his interest in playing popular music and jazz on piano. In retirement he decided to find out what record of the station existed in the Public Record Cffice, now National Archives. This book and his contact with many like-minded individuals is the result.
