Roy Smith, G3MPB, 9 September 2018

Roy Smith, G3MPB (SK)

Roy Smith, G3MPB was born in 1913 and passed away on the 9th of September 2018.

Despite operating from a postage stamp suburban garden and only using 100W to a multiband vertical with single 4ft ground rod, Roy achieved the DXCC Honor Roll with 358 DXCCs to his credit. He had participated in every Commonwealth (BERU) contest since he was first licensed in 1956 or 7 and always tried to improve his previous year’s score. He arose early in the morning to catch the VK/ZLs that he could only work if he was early on the scene.  In 2014 he was awarded the Commonwealth Medal.

Roy discovered an underground stream that ran beneath his garden, which may go some way to explain the performance of his vertical!

During the war he volunteered to join the RAF ‘Y’ squadron and spent five years searching for and copying signals from German reconnaissance aircraft. His amazing notes list all the callsigns, details and bases of these aircraft, as well as descriptions of the characteristic Morse sent by some of the regular operators. He lived in Wales for 20 years and also spent some time in Hong Kong.

He was active in BERU this year [2018] on 40 and 20m using his paddle as usual, with his distinctive sending of his call. He will be sorely missed.

Tribute by Peter Hobbs, G3LET

Roy Smith, G3MPB in his shack, possibly in 2014.

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