Stan Shackleford, G2HAX, 5th April 2015

Stan Shackleford, G2HAX (SK)

Stan Shackleford, G2HAX died on 5 April 2015 aged 96 and was the last surviving pre-war member of the Reading & District Amateur Radio Club (RADARC)  and was the last of the early members of the Club in its founding year of 1934. He lived all his life in the same small semi-detached house in Tilehurst, Reading, and never married. His wartime contribution is unknown but a friend of his told me it was “very significant”. He remained a member of RADARC for many years after the war. In the early 1960’s he built a rack and panel  valve (813 final) SSB/CW transmitter that he used with great success until he was unable to continue his hobby from a care home where he spent the final four years of his life. I remember his very steady VFO-based SSB signal on HF when I contacted him over the years. To change any of this simply didn’t seem necessary to him. He could work the world on any band. This equipment was donated to RADARC  members and much has been preserved.

In February 2008 RADARC members visited his shack to present him with honorary life membership of the club. The shack was an amazing revelation as it was an amateur radio time capsule from the 1950s. There was no commercial amateur radio equipment. There was  an AR88 and BC342 war time commuications RXs and a magnificent McElroy Bug Key, along with the valve SSB/CW TX and an AM top band TX. His antenna was and always had been a long wire (home brew ATU) strung down the short garden yet his very large QSL card collection was fantastic, with many cards from every continent and Oceana, long-gone prefixes and ex-pat callsigns from around the Commonwealth. The dates showed  there were almost no periods when he wasn’t  operational.  He was the classic example of the original spirit of amateur radio: build it yourself, throw a piece of wire out of the window for an antenna and, above all, operate!

Tribute by Vin Robinson, G4JTR
Chairman, RADARC

Category: Silent Keys