BRIDGEND & DISTRICT AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
 GW4LNP/GC4LNP
 

 
Club History


 

 

    Saturday April 24, 2010     

BRIDGEND & DISTRICT AMATEUR RADIO CLUB

 


Details from Mr. Alun Hulmes. 01656 721574




 

Our Club celebrates its 35^th  anniversary on June 7th 2008. It commenced back in June 1973 with a small group of local amateurs dedicated to VHF and UHF and it  was then known as the Glamorgan VHF/UHF Group. 

At the AGM in September 1978 it was proposed that the name be changed in order to attract members who could be put off by the VHF/UHF tag, this proposal was seconded and carried unanimously and the club was renamed as the Bridgend & District Amateur Radio Club.

I became Secretary at the January 1991 AGM and since then I have served the Club with dedication and I feel honoured for their support. 

73 de Alan Hulmes (GW7KYT) Secretary

Doug Crick    (GW0WIM) "Vice Chairman" & Shirley Crick  (XYL)



 

  BRIDGEND & DISTRICT AMATEUR RADIO CLUB.

 Ten Years Ago

August 1998 seemed to be like any other August as far as ham radio was concerned, but with one exception, our Chairman, Mike Smith GW7NIS, put forth his plan to help Amateur Radio by starting a website which he himself funded. This was the beginning of a landslide of popularity with the launch of the club website  http://www.hamradio-badarc.co.uk

    A counter was placed on the website so that the club could see the number of people who had accessed the site each month. Starting with just the local ham community looking at Mike’s handiwork, to steadily increasing as the word spread through the world about the useful information that anyone interested in ham radio or electronics in general could and would use. It soon proved to be such a growing number that the club decided to provide the funding for the website.

    As is the custom of the web host, a report is sent to the webmaster every six days. Not only does this show how many persons have accessed the site since the last report but it shows all kinds of information as to where the ‘hits’ come from, to which part of the site they were interested in, looked at and read. This is very helpful to Mike as it gives him, as the webmaster, a better understanding of what people are interested in and so he is able to change the content of the website accordingly.

    In the years that followed 1998, the website has got bigger and bigger, with new subjects being added to suit the changing public desires and it now has over twenty separate menu selections. 

   Now in 2008, just ten years since the launch of the website, its popularity has grown in leaps and bounds. This is shown by the reports which we get from the web host showing the number of hits that the website receives for each six day period. For several years now, the reported hits have been recorded at no less than 230,000 with most six-day reports recording over 250,000. Several times this past twelve months the six-day reports have exceeded 500,000 hits. These hits aren’t accumulative but an entirely new amount every six days, over the past year the website has received close on 14 million hits. 

   With that kind of interest, you can see that the original idea of our Chairman far exceeded, even his expectations. He has personally received letters and e-mails of thanks from people all over the world who have been helped using the information they have found on the website, and to know that the website is helping untold numbers of people every day makes the whole thing worthwhile. 

Happy ten years thanks to you Mike for what you have done for Ham Radio worldwide. 

By Doug Crick GW0WIM/WA7TZG Vice Chairman, Bridgend & District Amateur Radio Club                                              


                                                              

 

Contact Web Master  Mike Smith
swmas02@msn.com