GI4RY 1970 Northern Ireland

Just a note to say thanks for posting the QSL cards from Northern Ireland on-line. A Google search for 'GI4RY' revealed your website and the QSLs from my grandfather Bertie Walsh, first as 2IT and later as GI4RY.

My grandfather died in 1984 at 94 years of age and continued as a ham until a few months before his death, by then mostly on CW as his hearing had become too poor for Fone! Alas none of his 3 sons or grandchildren became hams although I have a huge interest in electronics that came about as a result of seeing all of my grandad's radio gear as a child. I have become interested recently in PMR446 radio nets and the use of voice-over-IP to link short range radio around the world.

Bertie was a trainee manager in Harland & Wolff's shipyard in 1912 and worked on the Titanic. He was destined to travel on the ship on her ill-fated maiden voyage, but a few weeks before she was launched he broke his leg in a fall on the liner and could not go. The man who replaced him was lost when the ship sank. Bertie left the yard and went on to success as a partner in a firm of cinema proprietors, but his true passion was radio. He sold a small number of hand-built receivers in the 1920s under the trade name Walbert (!) although as far as we know none of these now survive.

Thanks again for posting these QSLs, they are a real piece of family history for us.

All the best,
Glenn Walsh
Ballycarry, Northern Ireland.

QSL from the estate of W8YIQ
Info courtesy of Glenn Walsh