04-01-24

I have climbed Benbradagh on many occasions as it is our local hill, and in more recent times to activate it for Summits On The Air (SOTA). It will always however remain etched on my brain as the American mountain. When our family returned to Dungiven in the late 60’s the American listening station had just been built and there were Americans at our wee school, Dungiven County Primary! This caused a big stir as we were exposed to toys and gadgets about 10yrs before they appeared in the UK. Our family owned Dungiven Post Office which was also a Newsagents. Every morning an American Naval Officer called in at 8am on his way to the NavCommsSta from the main Station in the Waterside Londonderry. My father got to know him well as did I although I was only 8 yrs old! we delivered telegrams to the station (years later I reflect on how odd that was – telegrams to a top secret listening station!!) The officer was Lt Jack Butrovich III, (my father nicknamed him butterwitch)

6 years ago I was doing some research on the station and the Lieutenant and found an article in Short Wave Magazine, March 1969 (via Google and world radio history) which was a radio amateur publication from the 1930’s up to 2005.

It stated ” More two -metre operation in GI. A letter from Lt. Butrovich III of the U.S. Navy advises that he is just about ready to come on two -metre SSB from a 1,350ft. a.s.l. site on Benbradagh, County Londonderry, approximately four miles from Dungiven. His Stateside call is W6GQJ and the British one GI5ALP. The site is clear to the East and South East and so he should be able to put a reasonable signal into some parts of this country. For skeds, write to him at Box 60, U.S. Navcommsta, Londonderry. Welcome aboard, John.”

There was 1 further article in July 1969. ” John Butrovich, GI5ALP, whose advent on two metres was noticed in ” VHF Bands ” for March 1969, is now active from Londonderry on SSB and CW. So far he has had eight two-way SSB contacts, the best DX being G3CCH (Scunthorpe) at 275 miles, with signal strengths up to S8 at times. The gear consists of an HW-100 on 14 mc, through a Swan transverter running at 240 watts p.e.p. input. The antenna is an 8/8 slot -fed array at 35ft. above the ground (which is 1300ft. a.s.l.) and he is considering going to a 20 -ele collinear array to get greater capture area. He would like to run skeds, and says that any time 0400-0600z would be OK. (What’s the matter, John, can’t you sleep?) QTH, U.S. Naval Radio Station, Dungiven, Co. Londonderry, N. Ireland.”

So unknown to my 9 year old self there was an Amateur in Dungiven who I had talked to on many occasions!! My immediate thoughts were – how could I get his call sign? Some time later when I started to look into this I decided to apply to Ofcom for the call and was issued GI5ALP in 2023.

In January 2024 I headed to the summit to use GI5ALP for the first time. Many stations were worked from Northern Ireland, GB, Ireland, Europe and the Ukraine. Unfortunately no-one from the US, but Undoubtably the highlight was a summit to summit with the RSGB President John McCullagh GB4RS (GI4BWM) on Divis mountain in Belfast, who amazingly also knew Lt Jack but had actually worked him on 2m as a radio amateur!

63 contacts were made using GI5ALP approximately 50 years since its last airing on Benbradagh on VHF and HF bands using CW, SSB & FM modes.

A US Navy operator at the station on Benbradagh in 1968 was required to pass tests in Morse code at 36 wpm reception and 26 wpm transmission!!

John ‘Jack’ Butrovich III USN(Ret), LT, passed away April 13, 2013 at age 80 in Corpus Christi, TX.

Lieutenant Butrovitch receives the Stars and Stripes