Colin Page, G0TRM – 2 March 2025

We are greatly saddened to report that Colin Hewison Page, G0TRM became a Silent Key on Sunday 2 March 2025, aged 91.

Colin was a long-time Marconi engineer, who passed his RAE in 1992 and joined the CARS Committee, initially as an assistant secretary in 1994 and helping with sound equipment for talks/meetings. He served in various Secretarial roles until retiring at the 2022 AGM (though still coordinating the CARS Nets until recently).

In 1992 he took the RAE and passed with credits as he had previously studied radio and electronic principles during schooling and a five year Marconi apprenticeship “that was the easy part, the not so easy part was the 12 words a minute Morse test which I passed at the London Electronics show in early 1993”. He became a member of CARS having been introduced to the Society by fellow members at Marconi in Chelmsford.

He became CARS Secretary in 2007 and stepped down in 2022. Duties included taking, writing-up and distributing the minutes of committee meetings, contacting potential speakers for club nights and arranging dates for them to visit, producing and distributing an events programme covering most of the CARS Club’s activities and composing the club profile for the RSGB Year Book.

He had an interest in all things electrical and mechanical from an early age having been encouraged by his father, himself a SWL and constructor. An early birthday present was a buzzer and a morse key. It sparked an interest that lasted all his life – that key along with some 50 others were his pride and joy together with a very special key collection he restored belonging to Louis Varney G5RV (a founding member of CARS) which were handed to CARS in 2000 when G5RV was Silent Key.

Colin attended a London Technical College leaving at 16 to become an apprentice Instrument Maker at Marconi’s Chelmsford which entailed a long journey each day from London to Chelmsford and an early start. At the end of his five year apprenticeship he was working on Government projects so his National Service was delayed for two years. When he eventually served, it was as a J/T Ground Wireless Fitter in the Royal Air Force. After training at Compton Bassett in Wiltshire, he was sent to RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, home at that time of the 617 Dambusters Squadron then composed of heart stirring Vulcan bombers.

On his return to Marconi he passed through the assembly and other sections before joining the receiver test department, later moving for 10 years to the Mobile Radio Division at Beehive Lane, eventually he was in charge of the test department there. It was then back to the New Street main works to join the HF Communications Division as a systems engineer, involved with long range HF communication links. He often travelled for Marconi on business visiting Algeria, Denmark and America. Colin also spent two occasions in Oman living under canvas in the desert maintaining a Triffid radio network during Omani military exercises! He also travelled throughout the UK visiting Royal Navy radio stations and shipyards repairing Marconi equipment as and when required. During the last two years of his lengthy career at Marconi, Colin was a key part of a team working on two Frigates for the Malaysian Navy at the BAE shipyard in Scotland installing and testing all the onboard radio and internal communication systems designed and built in Chelmsford.

John O’Connell M0JOC Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society GX0MWT

Category: Silent Keys