|
A.K. 'Ken' Scrivens Nepean ON, Canada QCWA # 8296 Founding Member Ch 70 ex VE3AFO |
SCRIVENS, Ken Peacefully at the Queensway Carleton Hospital on July 30, 2010 at the age of 89.
Beloved husband to Patricia. Loving Father to Ted (Claudette), Mary Ellen, Tom (Brenda deceased), and Stepfather to Susan (Stephen), Sandra, and Steven (Tina). Cherished Grandfather to Scott, Sean, Robert (deceased), Monica, Alexandra, Aaron, Patricia, Sarah, and Hannah. Great Grandfather to Hailey, Braedan, and Alicia. Brother to Gordon (deceased) and his wife Kathleen. Uncle to Stephen and Greg.
Ken was among the first to take the Canadian training course to become a "radar mechanic" (radar technician) at the beginning of World War II. He was sent to Halifax to help install and operate the surface warning system at the entrance to Halifax Harbor. Called Night Watchman, this 200-MHz , 1-kW set was completed in July 1940. Later he helped to set up and operate No 30 Radar detachment, a coastal warning site at Cape Bauld, Newfoundland in late 1942. He was later involved with other stations on the Atlantic coast and was then sent to the UK to install a more advanced radar.
After the war, Ken joined the Canadian National Research Council in the Navy Section of the Division of Radio and Electrical Engineering, working in the labs on Sussex Drive. At NRC, Ken worked on radar countermeasures in the microwave direction finding area. In the late 50s he worked on countermeasures against the Mid Canada Line. NRC had a large truck/van filled with transmitters and receivers and a variety of antennas and electronic test equipment for which Ken was responsible. A test section of the Mid Canada Line ran from about Mont St Bruno, Quebec in the east, to the Pembroke area in the west. Ken traveled all over the countryside in between with the experimental countermeasures equipment. He also spent some time doing the same thing in the air in an RCAF Dakota.
About 1960, the NRC group in which Ken worked was given responsibility for developing instrumentation for the Black Brant series of upper atmosphere sounding rockets. Ken was very active in the preparation of rocket payloads, and subsequent launches at Churchill, Manitoba. He also worked on building the telemetry ground station and the data processing station at NRC.
Ken got his amateur radio licence in 1946. His first call sign was VE3AFO, which he kept for many years until taking the two-letter call sign VE3LJ, when it became available. He had always been active on HF AM and SSB and was one of the early users of 2M repeaters in Ottawa. He was the founding member of Chapter 70 of the QCWA, having organized the initial group of local amateurs who petitioned QCWA to form the first Canadian QCWA chapter.
Around 1980 Ken was transferred from the NRC Radio Division to the NRC Hertzberg Institute of Astrophysics, where he worked until his retirement in the mid 80s. Throughout his career, Ken was one of the senior technicians in the lab, supervising a number of junior people, and helping them with his vast knowledge of all aspects of electronics, from audio to microwaves, and with his familiarity with many different kinds of military equipment developed during WW II and in the years following.
Ken was a friend and co-worker of mine for a long time, so I have put together the attached short biography which we hope you can use somewhere.
Ken
VE3PU
Secretary Chapter 70