Radio History Short Stories

Book excerpt: It might be hard to imagine the life of a radio officer more than fifty years ago, while flying a plane or travelling on ships (such as the Royal Navy’s HMS Bounty) across vast stretches of sea, navigating to far-flung destinations. Author Spurgeon “Spud” G. Roscoe lived that life from the age of seventeen, learning the breadth and depth of telecommunications, which steadily evolved from flags and Morse code to more sophisticated systems. In Radio History Short Stories, Roscoe shares his unmatched stories of his life and work with wry humour and encyclopedic knowledge. The tales in this book are certainly entertaining in their vibrant detail. But more than that, they serve to preserve the complex and little-known history of the radio operator. Written as somewhat of a memoir, while delving into some fictional accounts, Radio History Short Stories is a companion book to Roscoe’s previously published nonfiction work, Radio History Ship to Shore, a treatise on ships’ navigational aids and communications systems over the centuries.