Jack kept a yellowed scrap book of newspaper
clippings and the like, all related to his wireless job or to that of his friends in the field. I've also added one clipping from Chas
Aitkens material--#22.
Clipping #1: This two page type written memorandum contains a couple of short newspaper
articles lauding the ability of Estevan Point Wireless Station to reach out to record distances, communicating with vessels sailing to New Zealand and
Australia.
Clipping #2: Harold Tee retiring.
Harold was with Jack in 1913 on Triangle Island. This is something I copied from a note in the scrap book and gives a brief history of Tee's career. See
also clipping #6 below.
Clipping #3: Cecil Clark, of the Victoria newspaper "The Daily Colonist", wrote on popular local history. This document is from 1963
where he interviews four wireless operators about their Triangle Island experiences.
Clipping #4: Schooner 'Noble' comes to grief around the Escalante Reefs on January 08, 1928.
Clipping #5: (File is 1 MB in size.) November 15, 1934. Jack became the Radio Inspector for British Columbia in 1925. At one time the owners of
homeradios were required to license their receivers annually. The fee was around $2.00. Part of Jack's duties were to prosecute those who didn't pay
their annual fee. Many home handymen went to great lengths to hide or disguise their receivers. One old inspector told me of finding a radio's loop antenna
cleverly wound around the frame a living room door. A wire antenna strung outside the house would be a dead give away of a receiver inside. The fee was
generally despised by all and sundry, and a thankless enforcement task for Jack. The fee requirement ended sometime in the early 1940's, I think.
Clipping #6: Harold Tee was a fellow operator on Triangle Island in 1912-14. Tee went on to eventually retire as the District Superintendent of Radio for
Saskatchewan.
Clipping #7 &
#8: March 1928.
Gerald Pike three years out from Britain was posted to Merry Island Lighthouse.
From there he provided communication with vessels transiting along the inside
coast, north of Vancouver. He met a sad painful end when an open can of
gasoline he was carrying ignited.
Clipping #9: Walter Lambert
appears in a number of Jack's photos, but this clipping relates to his hobby of
rowing across the local straits. Lambert was a radio operator and eventually
helped create the radio operator's course at King Edward High School in
Vancouver, BC. See Lambert in uniform in photo
260 or at the blackboard in photo
353.
Clipping #10: A letter to a prairie newspaper complaining about the amount of interference on his receiver. The writer paid almost a
month's salary for the receiver and certainly isn't getting their money's worth. Interference from other radios, appliances, machinery and the like was a
big headache in the early years.
Clipping #11: Yet another letter of complaint to the local newspaper, this time from Vancouver, BC, concerning radio users who cannot operate their receivers
properly. In our time we may wonder about that statement, but back then a popular receiver the "regenerative receiver". It was a simple, inexpensive, and
sensitive single vacuum tube receiver. If not adjusted correctly it would turn into a miniature radio transmitter and create havoc to other radio listeners in
the vicinity. The word 'bloopers' in the clipping refers to the sound of the interference would make in a neighbour's receiver.
Clipping #12: A note from a British newspaper about a 'local boy making good in the colonies'. The date would be shortly after 1925.
Clipping #13:The old wireless building on Gonzales Hill to be demolished about 1945. The 'new' building,
on the grounds of the University of Victoria, is now in use by the University of Victoria since the
Victoria station moved out to Sooke in 1967 to get away from the creeping urbanization.
Clipping #14: January is a bad time of year to be up the west coast of Vancouver Island in a small boat. 1928 was no different. Estevan Wireless gets the word
out to Victoria.
Clipping #15:
Mr. E. (Eddie) J. Haughton was the Superintendent of the Department of
Transport's Radio branch here in BC. He had been in that capacity since 1912
and had thus overseen the building up of the wireless stations and
infrastructure along the coast. Haughton retired in December 1938 and Jack
Bowerman succeeded him. Unfortunately Haughton's retirement was short
for within two years he was passed away.
