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IoAARC

Marconi Day GB2MRS SES at Somerton Radio Station

1 minute read

John G8VZA together with Mid Somerset Amateur Radio Club (MidSARC) have been looking at putting the old Marconi radio station at Somerton1 on the air for Marconi Day. Simon from MidSARC has managed to get SES callsign GB2MRS for Marconi Radio Somerton which is registered with International Marconi Day2, an event celebrating the birth of Marconi on 25 April 1874. It’s usually the nearest Saturday which is the 27th April in 2024.

MidSARC will be QRV on HF on the 27th on 80m and 40m. The site is being developed for housing, some of the original buildings have are being converted for housing, so this will be a one-off opportunity, coinciding with 150 years since Marconi was born.

Somerton now, photo: John G8VZA

Some of us from IoAARC may lend a hand for the event, if you can’t be there then perhaps work the station on the 27th April. Note that the local authority are planning to close the road from Somerton to install sewers to the site. Access will then have to be from A372 approached from B3151 junction then 3rd turn right - Falkland Court Somerton, postcode TA11 7JD.

Somerton radio station was opened in 1927 as part of the Marconi Beam Wireless Service, initially on telegraph routes to New York and South America, later Japan and Egypt. BT archives have an interesting commemorative leaflet from the 50 year Golden Jubilee of the site. It eventually passed to the Post Office and then to BT. The station closed in 20003 but the mast remained in use until around 2005.

the disused site

In 1947 the extensive aerial system was damaged when it iced up4, as did the paired Tx station at Dorchester, and it took two months to repair the system. The Empire service took advantage of the redundancy implied in the name of the ‘Cable and Wireless’ company operating it and traffic shifted to undersea cable.

  1. You can read more about Somerton Radio Station in the book The Marconi Beam Wireless Stations Of Somerset by Larry Bennett, former RO at Portishead Radio ↩

  2. the URL https://gx4crc.com/imd/official-imd-stations-2023/ is also correct for this year, 2024, despite the 2023 in the URL ↩

  3. From BT Microwave Sites ↩

  4. “Round the World of Wireless: Wireless Interrupted : Cables Carry On”, Practical Wireless, May June 1947 p222 ↩