About Us - Andover Radio Amateur Club Hampshire history and information

ABOUT US - HISTORY OF THE CLUB

The Andover club started life in 1978 when Martin Bushnell and Peter Wright G8GYS decided to winkle out other like minded electronics enthusiasts in the Andover area. Peter was running fast scan TV at the time and others were able to use ordinary TV sets to monitor his transmissions. In fact the firm of Link Electronics in Andover was a breeding ground for members housing as it did G8ADM Dave Mann and G8AER John Tanner. After the club started to meet regularly the membership snowballed and other licensed amateurs joined in preferring the local club to the well established but somewhat distant club at Salisbury. ARAC has always been happy to accept members with widely differing backgrounds and it absorbed many from the CB fraternity alongside experienced signalers from the Services and engineers from the radio and TV trade.

We recently received this video from Peter Wright, G8GYS. Looking back through some old VHS home video footage, shot in the early 80's perhaps, there was footage of ARAC's attempts to install a HF aerial at the Wolversdene Club in Andover. This was our venue at the time for club meetings. As VHS tapes don't have a date and time stamp (how primitive!), the year of the footage is unknown. This has now been digitised and made into a short video, which might be either nostalgic, or a window into a world before health and safety, depending on your age! The pictures aren't great due to the technology of the time, but it's the content that's interesting. Enjoy! Please click on the link to view or download the video: AERIAL VIDEO

The club’s venue has moved about over the years in an attempt to find that perfect location i.e. plenty of room for antennas and cars. So at the present time we are located in the village of Wildhern (now becoming well known for the Spring and Autumn Car Boot sales that we hold there). The club operates from the Village hall as it is well elevated for VHF operation and is remote enough from the village houses to cause no interference to TVs and the like. As a club with a wide ranging membership in terms of age and experience, we consider the personal protection of our members and their data important.

The following links provide details of our policies regarding Safeguarding, GDPR and the ARAC Constitution (from January 2018). They will open as a PDF in a new page.

ARAC Constitution

Protection Policy

GDPR Policy

The club provides Foundation and Intermediate courses on a demand basis. See our members page for information.

Competition Achievements

Andover Radio Amateur Club, after a 25 year break from the VHF NFD competition, started competing again from a site at Wexcombe Down in 2017. After a very enjoyable weekend and some respectable results for the first major competition attempt in 25 years, it was decided to continue to compete in this event the following year and this has continued almost every year since. Many of the members take part on a rota basis over the weekend to cover as many hours of the competition as they physically can.

In the first year back to the competition in 2017 the club achieved 10th place in the ‘Mix and Match’ section. This was improved the following year when the club move up the table to 9th place and in 2019 moved up again to 6th place. Due to Covid restriction, as with many clubs, the competition was not attended in 2020.

In 2021, again in the ‘Mix and Match’ section, our results improved again when we came 2nd being pipped at the post by Warrington CG. From 2022 the club changed to the ‘Low Power’ section working 70MHz, 432MHz and 1.2GHz, to the surprise and delight of the club members, ARAC came 1st in this section. We continued to compete in the ‘Low Power’ section in 2023 and once again achieved 1st place in the competition. The club are the very proud keepers of the Arthur Watts Trophy which with continued success are hoping to keep for a few more years.

ARAC members also compete in the 2m UKAC competition each year. In 2023 the club achieved 27th place out of 57 entries which is a reasonable placing. However, the members are hoping to improve the results in the coming years.

Committee and Annual General Meetings

The committee meet several times per year to plan the events and calendar items so that the members have opportnities to learn more about the hobby, keep up with the latest changes that are happening globally or take part in activities that are fun.

photo of club members at an ARAC AGM Andover Radio Amateur Club Annual General Meetings are run annually in June. There is usually a good turnout of members at this event where new ideas are put forward, committee members are elected or re-elected and members have their say in aspects of the running of the club for the year ahead. This year's AGM voted in Mal G8FHI as our new Club Chairman, as Mike G6TGZ stood down from the position. Mal is a long standing and very active member of the club, popular by demand the members deemed Mal the obvious choice to take up the role of Chairman this year. As this was the only change to the committee this year, all other members remain in post. The current list of committee members for this year are in the table below.

We celebrated the success of the boot sale that took place in April this year and are looking forward to running one annually every spring. The committee are looking to improve the club's social calendar this year, bringing back some of the older family events and try out some new ideas too. Angie G6ABM was awarded with the member of the year award for her long standing contributions to the club and committee, she has been instrumental in keeping the club alive during the more difficult times, post Covid and beyond.

Committee Members	Position	ID
Mal Clarke	Chairman	G8FHI
Gapped post	Vice Chairman	TBC
Paul Phillips	Secretary	G4KZY
Gapped Post	Treasurer	TBC
Ivan Clarke	Web Administrator	2E0DUM
Ady Jurd	Ordinary Member	M7GHS
Brian Chandler	Ordinary Member	2E0GNC

ARAC Annual Boot Sales

Andover Radio Amateur Club has for many years ran two boot sales in both the spring and autumn every year, to sell computer and radio equipment either new or old.

These have been extremely successful and very popular with both sellers and buyers. The space that we have at Wildern Village Hall allows for sellers to either purchase table space inside the club house or outside in the adjoining field. Over the years we have had as many as 40-50 sellers in the field and a very full club house with a wide range of products and equipment on sale. There is usually refreshments available that has included Tea, Coffee, Breakfast Rolls, Sandwiches, Cakes and much more.

In the last few years the organisation and running of this event become more difficult, firstly due to Covid Restrictions and then our 2023 boot sales had to be cancelled due to circumstances beyond our control. However, this event returned in the spring of 2024 which was a great success. We are continuing with our boot sales on an annual basis but due to unforeseen circumstances the planned Spring Boot Sale for 2025 is now posponed until further notice.