Honoring Aviation History at White Waltham

On Saturday, 5th September, members of the Bracknell Amateur Radio Club (BARC) gathered at White
Waltham Airfield during the West London Aero Club’s Members’ Day. This large, established, annual event is a fantastic opportunity to demonstarte Amateur Radio in public.

Participating in the Airfields on the Air (AOTA) event, organized by the Royal Air Force Amateur Radio Society, the club set up a special event station to bring local aviation history to life

Operating under the special callsign GB0ATA, BARC dedicated the day to honoring the heroes of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), which based its wartime headquarters at White Waltham.

Utilizing an Icom IC-7300 paired with an inverted-V doublet antenna, our 40m SSB station established clear voice contacts across the UK and Western Europe.

In addition, BARC operated a low power (5W QRP) 20m FT8 statoin via an FX4CR transceiver and a telescopic vertical antenna. This setup demonstrated modern weak-signal digital processing alongside traditional voice
communications.

Conditions were kind to us for most of the day, although the bands were busy with SSB Field Day activity.

Beyond filling the logbook, BARC hosted a public display stand featuring interactive hardware, Morse keys and a live spectrum waterfall display. Interested visitors, including flight trainees, were invited into the operator’s chair to deliver their very first supervised contact over the airwaves. It was also good to meet with other Radio Amateurs that visited our station.

Once again the Members’ Day airshow was spectacular, with the audience being treated to some fantastic displays and aerobatics.

Thank you to the West London Aero Club for allowing us to be part of their fantastic annual event.

Paul M9XPN