John Horrocks VK4LJ SK

[VK4ADC]

John was really the reason I took up the hobby of amateur radio. His family lived in the next street to ours and I was interested in short-wave. Almost every time he came 'on-air' and I heard him on my receiver, I ran around to his place and watched him working DX on 20M AM from his shack doorway, 4 x 866A mercury vapour rectifiers glowing purple, and a Geloso VFO into a homebrew transmitter plus a wartime BC348 receiver doing the heavy lifting.  He subsequently nicknamed me his "on-air monitor". This was about 1963 or 1964, and I was encouraged enough to obtain my Z-call in 1967. I periodically caught up with John in person in early years following that, only on-air in later years and he always seemed pleased to hear from me and usually commented on those very early times.

John's activity as a Net Controller in the ANZA Net on 14183/4 over recent years has probably been the point where most current people became aware of him.

Unfortunately, I only became aware of his change to SK in the OTN news broacast yesterday, 6 April 2020.

Vale John, keep working that DX !!

Date of Funeral: 21/02/2020
HORROCKS, Littleton 'JOHN' of Ormeau Passed away 13th February 2020, aged 78 years
Dearly loved Husband of Gloria. Much loved Father of Janine, Kristina, Peter & their partners. Loved Poppy of Elle, Ethan & Darcy.
His funeral service was held Friday, 21st February 2020 at 11am.
The Courier-Mail  Date listed: 15/2/2020