Tuesday 8th June 2021: Lecture entitled ‘The Formation, Structure and Remit of the Radio Security Service’ by Dr David Abrutat. David has recently been appointed as official historian to GCHQ, His excellent book, Radio War, is available from Amazon. To access the lecture via Zoom email us for the link.
Sunday 13th June 2021: On air activity to commemorate the anniversary of the first airdrop in 1941 of weapons to the French Resistance. See the GI5TKA QRZ page – https://www.qrz.com/db/gi5tka for full details about the activation, it’s at the bottom of the page. The activity aims to try and capture some of the essence of what it was like to be a VI.
Tuesday 5th October 2021: Lecture entitled ‘The Mystery of Number Stations’ by Ron Bishop. Ron’s interest in this subject began when he was a short wave listener, he examines both past use or number stations as well as the present day experience. Please note corrected date.
Tuesday 9th November 2021: The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9th November 1989 will be the theme for our November on air radio activity. We will follow the same format as before. A cypher will be transmitted in morse code and our objective will be to accurately copy the letter groups, and the key to be used to decipher the message. There will be four opportunities to receive the cypher from 1200z, 1500z, 1800z and 2100z. Further instructions will be available on our QRZ page.
Tuesday 11th January 2022: We are pleased to announce a special unplanned Zoom meeting, an interview with a former CW telegraphist talking about his former professional life.
Tuesday 8th March 2022: Delighted to confirm that Hiroki AH6CY has agreed to give a presentation via Zoom about the Paraset spy radio on Tuesday 8th March 2022. It was originally planned that Geoffrey Pidgeon would also attend, but most will be aware that he sadly passed away recently. Hiroki’s excellent book is available from the RSGB bookshop.
Tuesday 5 April 2022 : Gi5TKA radio activity day. A similar event to our previous radio days, a cypher will be sent, but this time it will be double encrypted. Full instructions as to how this will work will be issued via our circulation mailing list closer to the time. These events previously have been great fun and encourage greater activity on the CW bands.
Tuesday 3 May 2022 20:00 GMT: We have a speaker who will be giving a talk about the work of Gilnahirk C.S.O.S This talk is a personal account of working in Gilnahirk, it has already been recorded and it will be worth hearing, you will not want to miss this.
Saturday 7 May 2022: Gilnahirk Activation Day is an annual event when we operate GB0GLS from the site at Gilnahirk C.S.O.S. Closer to the time details will appear on the GB0GLS qrz page.
Tuesday 11 October 2022, 20:00 GMT: George Busby, author of Spies at Gilnahirk, and Patron of the RSSM ARS, has developed a new presentation entitled ’The Quiet Man’. In this talk George brought new information to light from government files that have just been declassified.
Tuesday 29 November 2022: Gi5TKA our final radio activity day for 2022. As in previous activity days, a cypher will be sent, which will be double encrypted. Full instructions as to how this will work will be issued via our circulation mailing list closer to the time and also on our Gi5TKA QRZ page. These events have proved to been great fun and encourage greater activity on the CW bands as well as keeping our radio history alive.
Note new date: Tuesday 14 March 2023, 20:00 London time: To start this year’s programme Brian Clarke will talk to us about his experiences in working in Gilnahirk Listening Station, part of the Y Station network. This is a prerecorded talk, but Brian will be present to take questions.
Tuesday 25 April 2023 at 20:00 UTC: We are delighted that Dr David Abrutat will be addressing us again, his lecture will be on aspects of the Y Service network. David is the official historian to GCHQ and has written several books about the Radio Security Service, probably his best known book is Radio War.
Tuesday 12 September 2023 at 20:00 UTC: We welcome a new speaker to our Society, Chris Pettitt began his initial training at Bletchley Park and afterwards had a very successful career in radio communications. The title of his talk will be announced later.
Advance notice!
Saturday 4 May 2024: CW Radio Activity Day – Activation of the Gilnahirk Y Station site
For this activity the club callsign Gi5TKA will be used. Period of operation will be from approximately 09:30 to 14:30 UTC. Frequencies used will be 40M, 30M, 20M and possibly 10M, monitor RBN for frequency in use.
The purpose of this annual activation is simple to mark the significance of this site, the role is played during the Second World War and into the Cold War and to honour those who served their King and Country in this way.