I have known Johnny since I was a teenager, when as a Short Wave 
Listener I visited his shack on many occasions. This is how many of
 us gained our knowledge of Ham Radio, hoping something would
rub off. John would tell me of his exploits and plans for the future.
I presumed then that John was just an average ham. I was soon to
realize that although he was small in stature he stood head and
shoulders above everyone I have ever met, in both intelligence and
enthusiasm for the hobby.
     Although I have known him for all these years, it was only in the
last two years of his life that I got to know the non Amateur side
of John. At this time his health had started to deteriorate so I spent
more and more time at his home helping him with his aerials, and
carrying out all types of jobs that he was unable to do any more.
     We would chat over a cup of coffee. I learnt that he had had a
Grammar School education, but all he wanted to do was join the RAF
and train as a Radio Operator, which he did. When he was demobed
after the war he looked long and hard at the train in Blackpool
station that would bring him to Scunthorpe. He confessed to me he
didn't want to come here at all, it was because of Win his wife that
he came.
     He settled at first in Frodingham Road and went to work at a
small radio shop called Rolf's Radios in Oswald Road. The learning
curve was very steep as radios became more and more complex. Then
along came Television a whole new ball game, but John took it all in
his stride.
    He then moved on to Belchers a trade service organization which
involved him driving all over Lincolnshire repairing TV's, he even had
a spell in Scotland, but after two weeks he told them he couldn't
stand working there and this time he was pleased to return to our
town. They replaced his van every 70K miles and from this he
calculated  he drove about one and a half million miles during his
working life.
     He also told me about his father who one day took him to one side
and pointed out some old folk sitting outside a retirement home. "Look at
them son they are just waiting to die, I will keep going with my
hobbies until the end", which he did, he had a heart attack and passed
on. John said that's what he intended to do. This was at the time when
on top of his eyesight problems he had just been diagnosed as having
Parkinson's, which he brushed to one side as if it was just like the common
cold, and continued to plan his next project.
     John was the founder member of the Scunthorpe Amateur Radio 
Club, he was our secretary and later became the chairman. He gave us
many talks on all subjects, some I must admit went over our heads, but
then we were just mere mortals.
     Through his tuition he helped many obtain their transmitting licence.
John spoke excellent Russian, also French and German and loved
classical music. He could also send and receive morse at high speed and
nearly always won the clubs high speed morse trophy.
     John's main interest within ham radio was VHF communications which
he gave lectures on all over the country. During the fifties and early
sixties he carried out pioneering work in this field,
 earning great respect from amateurs in the UK and Europe.
He was one of the first UK amateurs to bounce VHF signals off the
moon when he made the historic contact with the KP4BPZ in Arecebo 
Puerto Rico. This was considered almost an impossibility at the time as
the technology was not available then as it is today, but John made his
own technology.
     In the early days of 2metres the only modes were amplitude
modulation and CW. Although SSB had been in use on HF it was thought
to be very difficult to make it work at VHF. Johnny thought otherwise
and he was one of the first, if not the first to use it on 2M. He had
many technical problems and sometimes had some ingenious methods of
over coming them. The most famous one was the oscillator that suffered
from thermal drift . He cured that one by digging a deep hole in the 
ground and burying it!
Latterly his favourite band was 6M, he was one of the original permit
holders. In the last cycle his activities were reduced by his wife's 
ill health so he missed out on many new country's in the openings. During
the peak of the present cycle he had much more time, and with his shack
now in the house instead of the draughty old shed down the garden,
he worked many new country's. Sadly John never quite managed the
magic hundred for DXCC on Six ending up with 95 worked. 

     His favourite mode of operation was meteor scatter, using this mode
he made thousands of contacts with Bas SM3BIU and Arne SM7AED.
Johnny was regarded as a leading expert in this field. He was an avid
constructor of radio equipment and for most of his life almost all of
his station was home built. There are many avenues to  frequent in our
hobby, Johnny must have visited most of them.

     Johnny has been an inspiration to us all, and we should all be proud
to say "Yes I knew John G3CCH".
RIP