24 April 2017

We are delighted to announce that Peter Blair, recently-retired Trustee of the Arkwright Scholarships Trust, has been made an Honorary Vice-President of the Radio Society of Great Britain, partly in recognition of his educational work with the Arkwright Scholarships Trusts and The Smallpeice Trust.

Peter is a distinguished engineer who spent 45 years in research and development in the UK electronics industry. From a student apprenticeship at Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Company, in 1962 he joined Standard Telecommunication Laboratories where he established the Defence Systems Laboratory. In 1985 he moved to Racal and managed their central R&D operation, Racal Research. His professional work has covered a very wide range including Gunn diodes, microwave links, radiating cable, GPS receivers, radar phased array antennas, adaptive antennas, signal processing and airborne satcom. In 1996 he was awarded the OBE for his contributions to British engineering, and in 1998, an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Surrey. At his retirement in 2000, Peter was Technical Director of Racal Defence Electronics, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the IET and a Chartered Engineer.

Peter is a keen amateur radio enthusiast. In 1964 he was the first UK amateur to pioneer earth-moon-earth (moonbounce) communications.

After retirement Peter devoted considerable time to encouraging the next generation of UK engineers as a trustee of the Arkwright Scholarships Trust and The Smallpeice Trust. Peter has encouraged Arkwright Scholars to engage in amateur radio and, in recent years, an annual visit to the National Radio Centre at Bletchley Park has involved Arkwright Scholars taking the Radio Foundation Exam.