Sixty years of GB2RS broadcasts

Frank Hicks-Arnold, G6MB makes the first GB2RS broadcast on 25 September 1955

On 25 September 1955, at 10am, the first RSGB news bulletin was broadcast from the station of RSGB Council member Frank Hicks-Arnold, G6MB using the call sign GB2RS.

It had taken two years of negotiations with the GPO to get to the first broadcast.

Initially, the GPO had declined to allow the HQ station to be used for broadcasting purposes, despite a number of other national radio societies having a news service.

Jimmy, GI3GGY had carried out some test transmissions from his home in Northern Ireland on 7047.5kHz using AM telephony to prove the reliability of such a service under his own call sign the previous year.

At a meeting in the GPO Headquarters in July 1955, the GPO agreed to allow the Society to ‘broadcast news bulletins to its members’.

Sixty years later GB2RS is still broadcast each week by volunteers, to whom the Society would like to express its thanks.

Category: Front Page News, GB2RS Headlines