COUNCILOR PROFILE

David Harding (Raydah to CBers and G0DQI to fellow amateurs) first became interested in radio at the age of 8 when he experimentally tuned the family short-wave set and heard a voice calling from Peking, followed by New York and Melbourne, he has never lost his fascination with short-wave, and SWLing is still one of his favorite hobbies.

David is one of the few to have had to take the RAE twice!  His first attempt was in the fifties, in the days when it was partially administered by the Post Office. He passed, but never took out a callsign, as his firm sent him off to Africa for a few years. He set up with CB in 1981 when it was legalised, and shortly afterwards decided to expand into Amateur Radio.  Neither he nor the Post Office, could locate the old pass certificate, so he had to re study everything and take the exam again. In the Amateur field, he is a Novice instructor, a Morse instructor and examiner, and specialises in amateur television.

 Going back to CB: soon after he went on the air, David was recruited by Thames, who were doing excellent work in South London on the Emergency Channel 09.  This led him to set up a local organisation in 1982, called Kent Coast Monitors. At its height, this group numbered over 400 monitors, covering most of East Kent, from Whitstable down to Romnev Marsh.   In its early days, it scored several spectacular successes, locating missing persons, passing on motor breakdowns and accidents, and relaying marine distress -messages to the coastguard.  In its annals are several nail-biting stories, including how they helped to save about seven lives.   One victim, who was rescued in the middle of the night when he was having a. heart attack, was so grateful that he promptly joined as a monitor!  

KCM began to broadcast a weekly news bulletin in 1982, which was run by David from his home.  It started as a 15 minute summary of monitoring information but when the Deal Breakers Club News went off the air in 1983, KCM was asked to take it over, so the news expanded to an hour a week with a team of twelve readers working on a rota.  It still continues today, almost 20 years later, having clocked up almost a thousand editions, sharing its material with Kent Talking Magazine for the Blind. Mobile phones and stricter rules regarding Marine Radio made the work of  KCM and the usefulness of CB Channel 09 all but redundant.. Although the group still exists, there is nowadays almost no call at all for its service.  

Apart from writing intermittently for various radio journals, and taking the post of Chairman of NATCOICIBAR for a short time, David was invited to the inaugural meeting of the BCBC at which he was immediately elected Treasurer (being a Chartered Accountant by profession).   Out of the 22 who attended that first working group, he is one of the few to have survived until the present time. His main work with BCBC has been keeping the accounts, writing booklets, attending meetings with the RA, initiating a Blueprint for CB, assisting in the drive for getting Packet Radio on CB, and leading the campaign for CB on VHF.  

Top of Page