University of Reading Centenary Festival – GB0UOR

2026 marks 100 years since the University of Reading was granted its Royal Charter. To celebrate this important anniversary, Bracknell Amateur Radio Club (BARC) were invited to run a Special Event Station using the commemorative callsign GB0UOR during the Centenary Festival celebrations.

The festival was held across the Whiteknights Campus where a huge range of concurrent activities were taking place. There was something for everyone from live music concerts, circus, drum and cycle activities to astronomy, environmental research, history, science stalls, lectures, performances and demonstrations.

For BARC the event was a fantastic opportunity to meet the Students, Alumni and visiting public and to demonstrate at first hand what the hobby of Amateur Radio is, how it works and to offer them the opportunity to take to the airwaves during some of our QSOs.

Arriving early allowed the BARC team to set up the Club’s new Gazebo for the first time, together with display flags. Thanks to the University Centenary Team we were able to connect to Mains power and secure our antenna poles for the HF 88ft Doublet and VHF White Stick to some solid fencing posts and we were ready to operate.

In addition to HF, Ed M8GSY was operating a VHF station throughout the day, also using GB0UOR and Gopan M0XUU expertly located the OSCAR QO-100 Geostationary Satellite with a clear line of sight from between the trees, obtaining a good quality signal.

Our stall included some live screens to allow visitors to watch our contacts in real time, both on HF and QO-100. The live map and waterfalls offered good starting points for our discussions with visitors to the stall.

One of the highlights of the day for us was a visit to the stall by Chancellor of the University Paul Lindley. After talking to the team about our activities and equipment, Paul bravely took to the airwaves, making a number of QSOs via HF and did well to hear the signal over the sounds from the festival celebrations.

Although we didn’t receive any calls from other universities, we did receive contacts from other university towns and cities.

The day remained dry until around 4pm, by which time the HF conditions had deteriorated, but Mick G0MGK, Paul G4HLF and Martin 2E0XBZ fought to grab the last few contacts of the day.

Our full list of contacts across the bands and modes will be uploaded soon.

Thank you to the BARC team and everyone that came along to help, support us and all the operators that called us during this special event.

Special thanks to: Paul G4HLF, Paul M9XPN, Ed M8GSY, Gopan M0XUU, Mick G0MGK, Martin 2E0XBZ, Toby M7TBQ, Graham G3TFL, Chris G1CCG, Malcolm G3TUY (and anyone I may have missed) for all their hard work and skilled operating that made the day such a success.