Poldhu Amateur Radio Club

11/10/2026

Less than one week to go. We’re delighted to be nominated for a World Origin Site Award.

Join us at Poldhu next Saturday for the presentation and then a special tour of the Visitor Centre.

07/10/2026

At around 12:29 on Thursday 8 October, a school on the far north coast of Scotland gets a call from the space station. 🛰️

Pupils at Wick High School in Caithness will question CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk (KJ5BFU) aboard the International Space Station. The station's callsign is NA1SS; the school's is GB4WHS. It's likely to be one of the most northerly direct school links with the ISS ever attempted, says the local paper.

Note the change: the contact has moved from the original Tuesday slot to Thursday 8 October, 12:29 BST (11:29 GMT).

You can listen in: the ISS downlink is 145.800 MHz FM (allow ±3 kHz for Doppler), receivable on an ordinary 2m set while the ISS is in range. No licence is needed to listen. No radio? The contact streams live at live.ariss.org, and the teams will try to send live TV pictures from orbit on the HamTV downlink.

The club was founded in 2023 by teacher Chris Aitken (MM0WIC); fifteen pupils had passed their amateur radio licence exams by January. Come Thursday 8 October, they get the sky. 📡

Listening in? Which question would your younger self have asked? 👇

https://www.moonrakeronline.com

01/10/2026

16/09/2026

Poldhu Amateur Radio Club (PARC) has organised another 'Saturday Session' guest speaker for Saturday 3rd October. Starting at 12.00pm our own Peter Taylor G8BCG will be giving a presentation on satellite comms... "The Moon and Other Satellites".

Peter says: "Licensed since 1967 (and unlicensed before that!) I will share early experiences with VHF and satellites which led to a passion for 6m DXing and in particular EME."

He will then go into a little more detail about the current day requirements for making your first 480000 mile contact via the moon on 6m, 2m or 70cm. Spoiler alert – they may not be as onerous as you think!

The Centre will open from 11.00am for refreshments and all are welcome to attend. Venue is The Marconi Centre at Poldhu.

25/06/2026

This month’s RadCom

In the July edition of , Geoff Varrall looks at the significant role that Cornwall has played in telecommunications. Its coast was chosen as the start and end point for the subsea cables connecting Britain to the rest of the world. It was also the best site for Marconi’s high-power radio stations.

turn to page 74 now👉 rsgb.org/radcom

Want to find out more? Geoff's book "The Telecoms Coast" is available to purchase from rsgbshop.org

18/05/2026

The Magic of Six Metres - Talk by Chris Deacon G4IFX

Why do people get so excited about the Six Metre band? Why is this 'in between' range of frequencies widely known as 'The Magic Band'?

Chris, G4IFX has been active on 50 MHz for the last 40 years but still keeps coming back - why?

In this talk, he will give a basic introduction to 50 MHz, why it's interesting, how it works, and how to get on the band. Hopefully, he will inspire one or two people to put up an antenna and give it a try.

Dr Chris Deacon is the current Secretary of the RSGB Propagation Studies Committee and a former Chairman of the UK Six Metre Group. His PhD thesis was entitled "Radio propagation through ionospheric sporadic-E".

Everyone is welcome to join us at the Marconi Centre, Poldhu, on Tuesday, 19th May at 1 pm for the talk by Chris G4IFX.

22/04/2026

International Marconi Day Marconi in Elettra’s Radio Lab Elettra enters Mounts Bay from Penzance The History Guglielmo Marconi (1874, Bologna; 1937, Roma) Marconi was born on 25th April 1874 at the family’s town house in Bologna, Italy. Much of his early childhood was spent travelling with his m...