Christopher Dowsett BSc CEng FIET, December 1942 – November 2021
Published: Tue 22 Mar 2022
Christopher Dowsett, mostly known as Chris, sadly passed away in November 2021.
Chris spent his early years in New Malden, Surrey, where he attended Kingston Technical School. He obtained his BSc (Hons) in Physics at St. Mary's College London University before joining Rediffusion as a Graduate Apprentice.
He then became a senior engineer in the Advance Development Team at Rediffusion Chessington during the seventies. He designed and developed the colour button feature on the television remote control to enable FastText and rapid access to colour-coded pages on Teletext - a system adopted worldwide.
Chris then founded the successful Telemole Ltd company, based in Dorking, Surrey. To improve services for the hard-of-hearing television viewer, he developed and built the TAD150. This pioneering device made it possible for viewers to playback recorded VCR content with subtitles.
The TAD150 proved to be a helpful tool, receiving approval by the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, and purchased by schools, colleges and individuals alike. It continued in use until the advance of digital broadcasting.
Chris spent his retirement years in Southern Spain. He pursued his lifelong hobby of aeromodelling during this time while he bravely battled against his advancing Parkinson's disease. He continued to enjoy receiving and hearing articles from the IET magazine.
He is survived by his wife, son, daughter and two grandchildren.