Biography of
Ralph B. Holland, VK1BRHBiography of
Ralph B. Holland, VK1BRH
My interest in electronics and science was kindled at the age of three when my father taught me to solder. My father was a country clergyman so I grew up in several small country towns and took my experiments to school to amaze my friends.
I still recall my first soldering iron which was constructed from a scope barrel, a piece of wood wrapped with electrical tape, held like a gun with a big knob to operate the push-rod, rubber coated wire with crocodile clips, a rewound transformer—and the smell of burning flesh. I also remember the seemingly endless supply of electronic components I could procure from my father and now appreciate the burden of their cost.
Because my father (VK2ZAD) has been a ham radio operator since 1954, I was in his shack as soon as I could walk. I think I even inadvertently climbed his tower at the age of five. (It was a wooden windmill tower—not one of those big ones!) I remember asking questions and pestering dad to the point of danger. On one occasion, dad was constructing an oscilloscope and debugging it. I kept trying to touch the interesting parts. He stopped working many times and asked me not to touch, which I tended to ignore. I was pretty persistent so he grabbed my finger and showed me how the 300 volt B+ supply felt. This completely cured me of this behaviour. This action has probably saved my life as I now have a healthy respect for all valve equipment!
My interests were inclined to electronics, particularly radio, but I also developed keen interests in chemistry, physics and astronomy. I really wanted to be a theoretical astronomer but couldn't afford to go to ANU. Before I matriculated from high school (college), I obtained pre-selection to the University of New England (UNE), Armidale, (Australia) and to the Australian National University (ANU) Canberra (Australia). Being a country lad, from a family of lesser means, I applied for a teacher's scholarship and was accepted into a training program at UNE where I enrolled in a Bachelor of Science double major in Physics and Chemistry and the obligatory Diploma in Education. The double major was somewhat difficult because the Physics and Chemistry lectures were held at the same time—no one did both!
I was also absent from laboratory sessions for long periods because I had to do six-week block "practice" teaching sessions, so I was later found doing lab work on my own in order to catch up. The physics lecturers soon noticed my proficiency in electronics and prohibited me from doing the "easy" lab sessions involving rf. I was often kept late with the burden of debugging other students' designs and experiments well after mine were complete.
I completed a Diploma in Education concurrently with the Bachelor of Science and enrolled in a Post Graduate Diploma in Computing Science, whilst still an undergraduate, just to fill in time. I lived in the Mathematics and Computer Science building, or so it seemed, and I completed that two-year Computing diploma in just two terms and was the only one to pass that year. This is how I became very interested in the young yet-to-be discipline of Computing Science. In those days we used paper card punches and desk-checked our code several times before compiling and running. Now we hit it with the compiler and runtime debugger and remove bugs after we have written and sometimes released it!
When I graduated from all three courses, and after three stints of practice teaching, I decided I didn't want to teach High School students, and applied for one year's leave of absence so I could learn to teach teachers about computers. My letter went to the wrong committee for a vote, and unfortunately, I received a letter typed in red ink (just like school teachers and letters of warning from the tax office) stating no! So I decided to relinquish my right of employment and was released from the scholarship bond as they had a shortage of teaching positions. This saved me lots of money and I have been greatly appreciative ever since.
I met my wife-to-be, who is a school teacher, in my later University years. She encouraged me to apply for a job as a tutor in Computing Science at the then New South Wales Institute of Technology, Broadway, Sydney (now University of Technology). After about three weeks they sent me a return ticket so I could fly the 500 odd miles to appear for an interview. After I returned home, I had almost given up on the interview but it turned out to be my first real job and the first time on my own in the big smoke. I don't think I could read the train platform signs back then!
After about a year I married my wife Liz, who fortunately for me was a local Sydney person who just happened to be studying in Armidale. I managed to stay at the Institute for a total of nearly 5 years whilst Liz taught in the NSW department of education.
Liz earned more than I did for those five years and took pleasure in playfully teasing me about it. We eventually decided we were going to save for a house, so I accepted a private enterprise programming position with Prime R&D Australia in Canberra (the parent company was Prime R&D Inc Framingham, MAS). We both moved down south to the relative cold and Liz managed to obtain a transfer to a NSW school just across the border (about 1/2 an hours drive in peak traffic).
I worked for Prime for several years and was transferred to Framingham to work at head office for almost a year. We resided in a quaint yuppie apartment block called Deerfield Forest. None of residents had children, there were tennis courts, swimming pools and turbo-charged Volvos and Mercedes everywhere. It was an interesting time for us as we had never seen such large shopping malls and so many people before. We managed to lose our car in the parking lots at malls many times until we learned to count the rows to some landmark.We did enjoy our stay in North America, but it was cold in winter and too humid for two weeks of the year in summer. My next-door neighbour was forever pulling down my long wire antenna that I used to listen to Radio Australia. When they left they asked if we were Russian spies because we had Morse code and time-pips emanating from our apartment - Liz and I looked at each other and couldn't stop laughing. We were quite amused!
When we returned to Canberra we bought our first house, had our first child, and 18 months later our second. We have been living here ever since and have been in Canberra a total of more than 15 years.
I was later retrenched from Prime, along with 75 other people, so I joined a small fun software company that grew to 90 people and was involved in the defense industry. I left six years later to join an "electronics" firm that grew to 120 people, also involved in the defense industry, where I got to play with GPS sets, model and design antennas and do other fun things like my hobby. The hardware engineers were fascinated by my mobile HF equipment and other toys. They were very helpful and taught me how to drive Antenna Analysers and other beaut equipment that I had never seen before. The boss used to follow me around because I was always enjoying myself. He eventually ensured I did my paper work as a Senior Systems Engineer and assigned me as a Project Manager for a software development project. This was easy because I was the Project Manager, Senior Designer and a Developer for the software that we were interfacing to from the other company (I guess that may have been why I got the job).
After a couple of years, I found the company management style stressful so I became my own boss. I started my own company and provided my services as a Computer Consultant. I have now been in that position for two years and am thoroughly enjoying it, although I am sometimes concerned about the unknown job that must be around the corner and I never seem to have much spare time.
I obtained my restricted Amateur Radio license in 1975 (original call VK2ZZB, later VK1ZRH) and very much later in November 1990, I obtained my unrestricted license (call VK1BRH), a major breakthrough in my Morse technology. I then developed a keen interest in 160 m, finding it a challenge to construct antennas and operate mobile.
I have published several articles in the Wireless Institute of Australia magazine "Amateur Radio" and currently have one publication in one of the Applied Computation Electromagnetic Society's (ACES) newsletter and a publication in a commercial magazine.
I maintain a website at URL http://www.arising.com.au/people/Holland/Ralph/ where my antenna interests become obvious.