Dad’s radio know-how could have easily detected Russian interference…

The Real Mackay by Dan Mackay

Volodymyr and dad would have got on like a house on fire. Although maybe, in the circumstances, I could have chosen a better figure-of-speech. What with all the missile attacks.

Alas, dad, god rest his soul, is no longer with us. But I’m sure he and the embattled Zelensky would have hit it off. Oops, there I go again…

Actually, these are serious times. The Ukrainian president, unlike his US counterpart, has shown some true grit as his country digs deep to ward of Russia’s relentless “special military operation”.

The odds were stacked against them from the get-go but somehow, with a little help from their friends, and heaps of Ukrainian determination, they have held on. The war continues despite hopes for some sort of truce or final cessation to the conflict.

Both Zelensky and dad shared a mutual love of comedy – and entertainment.

Dad’s comic hero was the legendary genius, Tommy Cooper. Volodymyr had set up his own TV production company, Kvartal 95 Studio, “to make the world a better place, a kinder and more joyful place with the help of these tools we have, which are humour and creativity”. How things have gone off script…

But it is dad’s, mostly unintended, creative technical forays that, I feel, he could have best contributed to the Ukrainian war effort.

I have no doubt that dad would have devised, whether he meant to or not, a defensive Iron Dome through which no Russian drone strike could penetrate.

He did it once before when we were growing up in Wick’s Louisburgh Street flats, although he had no idea at the time.

A mad keen radio amateur, he broadcast, almost daily, from his bedroom radio shack. “Golf, Mike, Number 3, Sierra, Yankee, Oscar” (GM3SYO) was his call sign. He kept meticulous notes of his many European contacts.

More than he realised, our neighbours were not best pleased and kept notes, too, when his broadcasts interfered with their TV viewing. Ear-piercing screechy, zigzag interference on their tellies obliterated any chance of watching Crossroads or Corrie!

Dad insisted it was impossible for this to happen given the different operating frequencies. Soon the GPO had a radio detection van outside our block of flats trying to hone in on the guilty culprit... We heard Wick Airport had to redirect flights to Kirkwall and Stornoway.

Dad’s highly sophisticated aerials and antenna in the back garden – mostly ex-RAF gear bought in the Barras – incurred massive electric bills and were just too powerful. There were threats his radio “ham” broadcast licence might be revoked.

It was a comedic tragedy. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

In another life he would have been a war hero at the code-busting Bletchley Park. His ability to detect foreign transmissions was second-to-none. He’d have been a sort of Scarlet Pimpernel of the airwaves.

And I’m convinced he would have put in place a defensive Iron Dome on the Ukrainian Front – a precursor of the strategic defence initiative – to ward off any incoming Soviet salvos. Just as Dad’s Army Lance Corporal Jack Jones would say “they don’t like it up ‘em”!

How the dreaded Ruskies would have been utterly bamboozled by GM3SYO!

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