Gerald Poaps' Scrapbook
Gerald E. Poaps left the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1947 and became the ninth member of the Radio Propagation Laboratory, which was housed with the Royal Canadian Navy in the old A Building on Elgin Street in Ottawa. He has loaned us a collection of photographs which he made during his career with the DRB, DRTE and CRC, and we are showing a few of these photographs to indicate to others the types of equipment worked on and developed through his career, and the types of projects undertaken. Gerald retired from CRC in 1975.
Here is the note we received from Gerald in April
2002:
"I joined DRTE Radio Physics laboratory on December 10 1948. The
group of nine personnel consisted of the following staff: Frank Davies,
Rita Richard, Jim Scott, Jim Cox, Amour Warwick, Clair McKerrow, Jim
Scott's analyst named Dave - I can't remember his last name, and the
machinist named McQueen. Six of us had office space in the Armed Forces
Headquarters Building A on Elgin Street Ottawa. Warwick, McKerrow,
and McQueen were located in the machine shop building located on the
Rideau River near the arboretum. About 1950 a small building was constructed
beside the machine shop and the Radio Physics staff moved in. I have
a photograph of the building taken in 1951. At this period in time,
additional staff were employed. To name a few: Jack Meek, Dr. Percy
Field, Marion Phillips, Ms. Fowler, Everett Stevens. An early phone
book would provide a complete listing. I believe that I, at 87, am
the oldest living member of the original RPL staff."
The RCAF was having troubles with deep
fading at their relay site on Highway 7, near Eagleson Road to
the west of Ottawa. Gerald was given the job of making radio
refractive index measurements, using a modified meteorological
radiosonde. Shown above on the left are the radio repeater bays,
and the rack on the right holds his test and recording equipment. |
A hydrogen-filled
baloon is launched to carry the radiosonde aloft, much as is
still done today all over the world. |
There was a contest
between the National Research Council and the Defence Research
Board for the development of a power supply which could operate
for months at a time, unattended, at temperatures down to -50C.
Shown here are Gerald's truck, trailer carrying twin diesel generators
and another trailer carrying a fuel tank. |
Dr. George Jull
became interested in the HF fading performance of orthogonally
polarized signals. This photo shows crossed dipole antennas. |
The receiver
racks for the dual polarization experiment. The box on the
table at the left is a paper tape punch which was used to record
data from the experiment. Punched paper tape was commonly used
well into the 1970's. |
In the 1950's,
people were beginning to experiment with VHF and UHF to overcome
the often unreliable aspects of HF communications. This antenna
was made at DRTE. It consisted of plywood sections covered
with wire mesh. This particular installation was at the Quiet
Site, and was in support of studies by Dr. Don Hay. |
