This site has been setup to give you information about the Cambridgeshire Repeater Group (C.R.G.).

The C.R.G. provide a number of voice, data, and television repeaters for the use of all radio amateurs in the Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, North East Hertfordshire, North West Essex, West Suffolk, and South West Norfolk area. Our repeater systems are currently installed at Madingley on the former Philips radio mast, now owned by NTL, and  Barkway, again, on the former Philips mast, now owned by NTL.

The group was formed out of the PYE Telecommunications Radio Club, to allow non-PYE employees the chance to join, and add their skills to the group.

The very first radio telephone voice talk-through repeater was developed by the radio amateurs at PYE, and became licensed as GB3PI in 1971. In May 1972,  it was moved from the PYE factory site, to their aerial mast at Barkway to provide a much wider coverage area for mobile and portable users.

The group developed the first UHF (433MHz) voice repeater, the first amateur television repeater (1300MHz), the first SHF (1297MHz) voice repeater, and the first high speed (as it was then) 9600baud data repeater (439MHz).

The C.R.G. gets most of it's income through a Radio and Electronics Rally which we hold annually at Bottisham Village College.

The services we provide for all radio amateurs are also available for emergency communications in the event of a major incident, and we are now working closely with the regional RAYNET groups to document these facilities in line with the Civil Contingencies Bill. An example of their use relates to the heavy snowfall we suffered in 2002 that caused chaos in the region. Thanks to the use of our VHF voice repeater (GB3PI) at Barkway, users were able to relay messages for people stuck on the roads throughout the evening, where the Mobile Telephone Network was unable to cope with the traffic.

If you have any comments about the site please drop me a line in the Guest Book or email me direct, or, if i'm on line, send me a message

Paul Dyke (G0LUC)