It would be a real shame if all of you folk migrate to Facebook and leave this great site to grow old, weary and lonesome!

Email: mail@onstuis.co.uk

Hi David, I am staying here. All I need is contributions to the site and I will be happy. On another note. One of the topics on this notice board is Silent Valley and the lack of radio communications in the valley. I presume the military were communicating on VHF and the car radios were MW. Do you have any ideas as to what frequencies the military were using for their local communications?

73's

Jonathan Wilkins G6DIQ, W6DIQ

Hi Jonathan,

I wish I could supply a definitive answer, but the man who would have known, my old buddy Stan Symons who was a Major in the Royal Corps of Signals at the time, is sadly no longer with us. I do know that HF communications was very much in general use in the sixties by the military.

If you look at mil vehicles in Aden photos at that time the HF whip antennas are very prominent. I have only come across one photo of an RMP office with what could be a VHF colinear antenna on the roof.

My own 20 metre groundplane atop of Palida Terrace used one of the military copper plated steel whip antennas!

As Silent Valley was pretty much surrounded by high hills I guess it would have been a radio black spot for signals coming in from the outside giving rise to the stories I've seen posted but I think the 'Silent' description is more likely to be due to the lack of audible noise not radio signals, or the association of silence with the dead.

73's

Email: mail@onstuis.co.uk

Hi David and Jonathan
Don,t get me wrong I don,t want to see people migrating from our wonderful site, just thought it might encourage people to become more involved in what is dear to our hearts.
As for Silent valley...indeed you could hear a pin drop in there even with a sandstorm raging...nothing, not a bird, a cricket....zilch!! Hence Silent valley!! As for radios, as I have said before the RMPs from Falaise were rather annoyed on a number of occasions when a mere Senior Aircraftsman (allbieit a cockey 19 year)from RAF Khormaksar was stopped for speeding, and they were all for confiscating my car, until they were informed that 'they would have a job on as the car belonged to my dad who was a BP emloyeee, as you can imagine this went down like a lead balloon and feverish radio traffic ensued, especially as I had been stopped not long before, at night, with their report being written up in my headlights, yes youv'e guessed it......what did Wadey do, but switch his headlights off. After much huffing and puffing and orders to switch my lights back on I politely refused and suggest they use a torch...........hilarious at the time and something that you don't forget!!!!
Got away with that one, but only just.
Don't care who you are, but believe me, RMP radios worked in Silent Valley
Oh happy days!!!!
Cheers Roddy

Email: wade@sky.com

Hi I was in Adeon 1974 til 1977,

Email: janebroom2..brtinternet.com

I opened a Facebook account to communicate with kids I grew up with after we left Aden. We were based in Beirut/Saudi Arabia with American Oil Companies)
Having "friended" a dozen people who I knew well, facebook now constantly sends me emails asking "do I know" all sorts of people who they have down as friends of my friends. Hundreds of them if not thousands. Its a total privacy breach, as presumably they are also sending my details out to all these people who I dont know asking them if they know me. Also they are sending out details of my friends to friends of other friends.
If I "friend" Aden kids on facebook, presumably they would then be bombarded with "do you know" messages about friends of my American friends and vice versa.

Facebook is OK for some but my loyaly will always be to Jonathan's BPADENKIDS site


(JW - Thats a tenner you owe me ha ha)

Email: gordonclark132@gmail.com

Hi Roddy I joined the Facebook page but there was no activity. I remember Peter Mackley very well.
Do you by any chance have contact information for Marie Stevens. Her email address must have changed.
Patricia nee Craigie

Email: patriciamiller5@hotmail.com