Pat on his 90th Birthday,
celebrating with GARES club members

In 1934, a young Pat Perkins attended the first ever National Field Day contest organised by the Radio Society of Great Britain. He didn't have an amateur radio licence at this time but helped to assemble and run the station which was a joint effort by the Gloucester, Cheltenham and Bristol clubs using entirely home built equipment. Building your own equipment was about the only way to get on the air in those days.

Pat had become interested in radio whilst a schoolboy and found, in Gloucester Radio club, people who were passionate and knowledgeable about building radio equipment and who were prepared to encourage and pass on their knowledge.

So began a life long interest in building and operating radio equipment. He participated in every National Field Day between 1934 and 2008 and, for many of these, he supplied home-built transmitting equipment.

In 1935, Pat obtained Artificial Aerial licence 2AYP and soon afterwards full licence G3MA. This was no mean feat in those days requiring him to submit a written paper on his experimental work on radio, to show his competence to design and build transmitters as well as receivers.

Over the years he saw many changes of technology. In the early days, he would have been limited to building and operating CW transmitters. As a result he became and remained an excellent morse operator throughout his life.

Pat in 2004

Technological advances brought about by the war led to the availability of better components and so in the 1950s and 60s he began to experiment with Single Side Band (SSB). By the 1960s the semiconductor revolution had taken hold and Pat started building transistorised equipment as well as continuing to build valve based sets.

It was inevitable that he should follow a career in radio and on leaving school became an apprentice in the radio repair department at Mitchells, a long established Gloucester business.

During the war he was posted to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) because of his radio engineering skills and worked on early gun aiming radar equipment.

Returning to Mitchell's after the war, he rose to become head of department only leaving the company when the management took the decision in the late 1970s to close its radio servicing department and focus on air conditioning services.

Moving to Heath Electronics, he ran the amateur radio service department until his retirement. In amateur radio circles Pat, G3MA, became synonymous with the Heathkit brand in the UK.

Pat was instrumental in getting the Gloucester radio club up and running again after the war and in 1947 became its secretary – a position he held until 1981. He was well known in the city doing a great deal to promote the club and the hobby. For a period he also acted as area representative for the Radio Society of Great Britain to which he belonged for over 70 years.

Pat's contribution to Gloucester Radio club over the years is immeasurable. He supported it in many practical ways giving his time to organise events, build equipment or represent it. Less visible but more importantly as its secretary he set values of openness and inclusiveness which the society still enjoys today.

Many in the Gloucester club will remember his willingness to explain radio principles or the time he spent teaching them morse code but most of all his passion and enthusiasm for our hobby. He will be sadly missed.