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Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society
G0MWT, GX0MWT, GB5HF, GB95-2MT, GB100MWT

GB2MT - Dec-1961 Transatlantic Anniversary


On 12th December 1901 Marconi made the first successful radio transmission across the Atlantic from Poldhu in Cornwall, to Newfoundland in Canada. Sixty years later....

From Short Wave Magazine Feb 1962:-

G3KPJ reports that Chelmsford Amateur Radio Club put a station on the air during the Marconi Sixtieth Anniversary, and the callsign used was GB2MT. (Only the Old Timers will see the significance of that one - " 2MT, Writtle, near Chelmsford " was one of the most famous announcements of all time in the pre-BBC days.) However - GB2MT was on the air for nine days and worked 466 stations.

G3KPJ is handling the QSL's.


The Marconi company magazine 'Marconi Companies and their People' featured the event on p15 of their Jan-1962 edition as per below:-


Talking to Canada to commemorate the first radio signal to the New World are members of the Chelmsford Amateur Radio Club, all from M.W.T. Left to right: E.F.Cranston, C.Call, Roy Martyr G3PMX, Peter Naish G3EIX, Arthur Butcher G3KPJ, Ralph Polley G3NAA, C.T.Snell and G Turner

Transatlantic Linkup: A special radio link-up between Chelmsford, Cornwall and Newfoundland was arranged by radio amateurs to commemorate the first signal to cross the Atlantic

Members of the Chelmsford Club, many of them from the Company rigged their transmitter and aerial at Bedell's End. During seventy-one operating hours in the Jubilee week 10 to 16 December, they not only exchanged messages with Poldhu and Signal Hill, St. Johns on several occasions, but linked up with amateurs all over the world. GB2MT, Chelmsford's call sign was heard as far as Australia, New Zealand, Surinam (Dutch Guiana), Saudi Arabia and the Faroes. They contacted all together thirty-four countries in four continents and this included sixteen American states, a total of 552 contacts.

The crowd of enthusiasts wedged into the little wooden hut out in the acres of Writtle plough, listened far into the night to tongues of every nationality, and finally sent off printed cards by post to confirm their contacts.


The 1961 GB2MT QSL card is below. Equipment used was a Marconi NT201 transmitter and an Eddystone 888A receiver. Antennas were a 264 foot long end-fed wire and a 14 MHz dipole


1901-1961 GB2MT 60th Anniversary QSL Card


Rear of the 1961 GB2MT QSL card


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