My name is Brent Seres
I recently came across your website, and really have
enjoyed browsing it , as I worked as an RI from 1977 to 1991 with DOC.
I'll include some biographical info below, and you can feel free to use
it as you see fit.
I was hired by the department upon graduating from
Sheridan College, in Brampton, Ontario in the spring of 1977, and went
to work in the Toronto District Office. As I recall, my supervisors
there were Joe Calico in radio
licensing, and John Nossotti in
Enforcement. Others hired with me included
Rob Martin, Pim Vanderveen,
Mario Luis. I also remember well
Bill Hall,
George Strongitharm,
Ben Baker,
Don Edwards,
Gary Steckly,
Bruce Genery, and
Pat Carey, to name a few. It was
the 70s CB craze, and I well remember the many hours spent tracking
illegal and out of band operators, and investigating all manner of
interference complaints.
In the fall of 1979, I took a leave of absence from
the department, and spent a year doing mission work supporting
translators with Jungle Aviation and Radio Service in Brazil and
Guatemala, repairing everything from HF radios and avionics to electric
fans and power lines. While in Brazil, I operated using the call sign
PY9ZAA, and ran numerous phone patches for other missionaries, as
telephone service to our part of the country was unreliable and
extremely expensive. Also, I guess the 'Wild West' of this remote part
of Brazil was considered rare DX, and I had no problem making lots of
contacts.
I returned to the Toronto District Office in January
of 1981, and then transfered to RSSC, in Acton that spring.
Art Solomon was station manager at
the time, and I worked alongside Ed Cooper,
Dave Slingerland,
Keith Myles and
Eldon Mclaughlin, as well as
Glen Ritchie, who became station
manager when Art replaced Glen Warsnop
in Kitchener DO. We did a lot of training of new inspectors at the time,
and developed the 'Petscan' automated sampling system which used a
Commodore PET computer and a Radio Shack scanner. Data was stored on a
cassette tape and graphs printed out on a dot matrix printer. Other
equipment I remember was the Racal 17c, Racal 1772 and CEI and Watkins
Johnston receivers whose model numbers I forget. We were just getting
started with using the monitoring vans at the time, and we had a SSB
link on 4967 kHz using a pair of Marconi CH25 radios for when we were
out of VHF range. Working at Acton was probably the highlight of my
departmental career, as we had to develop a lot of in house technical
solutions to unique problems.
In the fall of 1989 I transferred to the Belleville
DO as supervisor, where I remained for two years, before leaving to
complete my Bachelor of Education degree at University of Toronto. I
then taught Technological and Computer studies at Bayside Secondary
School in Belleville for 17 years before retiring in 2009, after which I
spent eight years teaching electronics and RF systems in the Broadcast
Engineering program at Loyalist College, until it was cancelled. I now
enjoy doing volunteer technical work for a local Christian radio
station, tinkering with Ham Radio, and helping my grandson discover the
same magic of radio that I did as a kid.
Below are a couple of images I found. I'm not sure of
the dates, but it would be in the mid 1980s. The first is of
Keith Myles and
Eldon Mclaughlin at the RSSC
console, the second is of Dave
Slingerland working on the updated 'Petscan' system. We had
moved from cassette tape storage to 5 1/4 floppy. If you look carefully,
you can see the Commodore PET open behind Dave.
Again, I really enjoy your site. TNX es 73
Brent. VE3CUS
4 November 2019
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