17 Sep 2019

In memory of Roger Belcher

Roger Belcher, technical director at RTT Programmes, one of the most experienced RF design engineers in the radio industry died on 1 August. He had had cancer for some time.

Roger joined the Marconi Group in 1959 as a 16-year-old apprentice and went on to design and develop antennae and radar processing equipment for Plessey Radar. This was followed by a spell in technical marketing at Texas Instruments, satellite antennae and RF modem design for Racal, and design of RF communications test equipment and hardware for Rohde & Schwarz and Messerschmitt MBB in Munich.

He joined RTT as a co-director in 1982 with a brief to redesign an all-in-one RF test set for the radio industry to compete with the Marconi 2950, integrating a sub 1GHz signal generator with a modulation meter, SINAD meter and power meter.

This became one of a range of test instruments sold mainly into the South East Asian production test market through a distributor network in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan.

In 1986 Roger presented RTT’s first radio design and engineering workshop, which marked the start of 30 years of presenting RF design topics to audiences in the UK, Europe, the US, Africa and Asia, including the annual Oxford Programme, a five-day workshop attended over the years by delegates from every corner of the industry.