Rhyl & District Amateur Radio Club - History of the club

A brief history of the Club:

Our club originally started as a result of a small 'Mobile Rally' arranged by a local group of top band mobile enthusiasts, at the Nant Hall Hotel, Prestatyn, North Wales, on 30th Sept 1956. They were GW3CF, GW2CCU, GW2FVZ, GW3FJI, GW3FPF, & GW3JGA.

The first club meeting was held shortly afterwards, on 5th November 1956, at the Railway Hotel, Prestatyn. The club was initially called The Prestatyn & District Amateur Radio Club (for just for a few weeks). Meetings were held on the 1st Monday of each month.

The 3rd meeting of the club, on 7th January 1957, was called as a General Meeting, and the club was officially re-named the Flintshire Radio Society. (As Rhyl and Prestatyn were in the county of Flintshire at that time) The club officials at that time were:- Chairman: Fergus Southworth GW2CCU, Secretary: John Lawrence GW3JGA, Treasurer: Peter Jones GW3FPF, Committee: DC (Pete) Morris GW2FVZ, Bill Davies (later to become GW8AHI), and a Mr Chambers (not sure if he was ever licenced). The subs were 5/- (5 shillings in old money - eqiuvalent to 25p) a year! By the next A.G.M., in January 1958, the membership had more than doubled.

The club continued to meet at the Railway Hotel until 1960, when on the 9th May 1960, the venue changed to the Ffrith Hotel, also in Prestatyn. By January 1961 the club had moved to the Bee Hotel in Rhyl, until sometime in 1962 when it moved back to the Railway Hotel in Prestatyn. The club continued to meet in the Railway Hotel till at least 1963, but attendance numbers seemed to drop off, and sometime prior to 1966 the club apperared to have paused meetings for a short while.

Meetings re-started again on 14th February 1967, with a General Meeting held in the Rhyl Silver Band Room, Windsor Street, Rhyl. It was on this date that the club was re-named The Rhyl and District Amateur Radio Club as it was now meeting in Rhyl. The secretary at this time was Alan Antley GW3UTG. The club continued to meet in the Silver Band Room until 9th October 1969.

On 23rd June 1970, a new venue, the Mona Hotel, Market Street, Rhyl, was used, and meetings continued here until at least May 1973.

(In November 1971, the main club callsign, GW4ARC, was obtained.)

Sometime later in 1973, the club moved again, this time to the Ambulance Station in Rhyl. I'm not sure how long the club lasted after this, but meetings must have paused again prior to 1977.

In 1977 or 1978 the Rhyl and District Amateur Radio Club re-started regular meetings again, meetings were still being held in the Rhyl Ambulance Station.

(In 1983, the second club callsign, GW1ARC, then a class B call, was obtained. **see note below)

The club continued very successfully for about 20 years at various venues in and around Rhyl, (for a list of these venues see below), until the late 90's, when due to diminishing membership numbers, and general loss of interest in radio because of the computer/internet boom, it was decided to put the club on hold for a while.

Meetings re-commenced in 1999, but unfortunately there was not enough local interest to make meetings financially viable for very long...

The club continued to exist without a formal meeting venue for many years, with regular on-air nets, contest entries, special events, rally visits, and occasional social meetings at various places.

After the Covid pandemic had died down local interest had picked up again and we started looking around for a new meeting venue. After trying various pubs etc., which all proved far too noisy to hold a decent conversation, we were eventually offered the use of the Rhyl Yacht Club building in Kinmel Bay. This proved to be ideal for us and we have met there ever since...

[**Note. It was later decided that our second club callsign, GW1ARC, was no longer needed, so we allowed it to lapse. This callsign is no longer valid, and may even have been re-issued by now]

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Previous Members:

A full list of all past members of the club is available on the "Past Members List" page.

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Previous Venues:

• Club formed as Prestatyn & District Amateur Radio Club - 5 Nov 1956
• Name changed to Flintshire Radio Society - 7th Jan 1957

• Name changed to Rhyl and District Amateur Radio Club - 14th Feb 1967

Bodelwyddan Castle (Photo Alan GW4HDR)

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Old club logos:

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