Retirement is the time to forget about work and carry on with that obsessive hobby. But NIGEL JARRETT discovers a man for whom work and hobby were always bound together
RADIO 'hams' who use the discoveries of Marconi to communicate with each other have never forgotten the time comedian Tony Hancock poked fun at them in one of his immortal sketches.
Other enthusiasts of the technology escaped the ridicule because few knew, or know, of their existence.
These are the people who transmit TV pictures using the gizmos invented by John Logie Baird but doing so with Marconi's discoveries and unquenchable sense of wonder.
Bob Robson, from Rogerstone, Newport, is 73 and still as obsessed by the mechanism as he was in the 1970s when he transmitted his first pictures. But if only he lived on higher, flatter ground.
"As TV pictures can only be transmitted in straight lines, it's not a lot of help when you are in a valley," he said. "But if you are prepared to slog all the way up a mountain with your gear, signals can be sent for up to 175 kilometres or more."
So that's what he and his fellow enthusiasts in the British Amateur Television Club do quite often, notably in Bob's case when from South Wales they successfully sent pictures to the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales and back again via a repeater device on Anglesey.
"It all goes back to Marconi and the time when he started his transmissions of radio signals across water in this part of the world," Bob explained. "If I transmit in one direction the repeater will spray pictures all round the countryside. By bouncing signals off the moist air above sea water on a hot day, we were able to send pictures from Bridlington to the Hook of Holland.
"I think what we are saying is that this technology is something the ordinary person can cope with."
However, Bob is no ordinary chap when it comes to electronics. He spent over 20 years with the technology in the RAF, and worked among others for British Aerospace, Molynx, STC and Nortel. He even had his own business.
He smiles in recalling the time in the RAF when, one summer, the camera he and his colleagues were using to track aircraft suddenly found itself pointing at the beach in Cleethorpes. Say no more!
Once interested in TV and still in the forces, he contacted a man in Blackwood who offered him some basic equipment and some circuit diagrams.
They met to swap bits and pieces.
"I built my own camera, modified a transmitter and sent him pictures from Weston to Blackwood," Bob said. "And it went from there.
"You can get started quite easily. It depends on what you want to do. If you use an old-style satellite receiver you can get going for about £100. You'll need a decent aerial and it will help if you are living in the right place geographically. Cameras can be picked up new for about £400."
What is actually transmitted? Anything from someone talking technique to another demonstrating how to fit a bicycle chain or holding up a baby and saying proudly, 'The latest addition to the family!' It's a mixture of communication and the building of equipment," Bob said.
"I wanted to know if I could get pictures from one place to another as well as wanting to link up cameras and create a mixing desk. And making everything work from a 12-volt battery is a challenge in its own right."
It's very much a man's world and the women, like Bob's wife Betty, are famously philosophical about it all.
But when you've got to go climb that mountain, you've got to go.
Contact details for the club
* The British Amateur Television Club's membership secretary is Pat Hellen (CORR), The Villa, Plas Panteidal, Aberdyfi, Gwynedd LL35 0RF.
* Please write for information rather than phone.
* The club's website is www.batc.org.uk
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