The Bishop Auckland Radio Amateurs Club (BARAC) was formed in the early 1980s by a small group of CB’rs. Its meeting place was in the Travellers Rest public house in Evenwood village. The facilities at the Travellers Rest were fairly limited. We moved to our present site, Stanley Crook Village Hall, in the mid 1990s. Our antenna array outside is substantial, over 900 FT ASL and has been erected for many years causing us no planning problems.
BARAC is the County Durham club for Radio Amateurs and prospective Radio Amateurs. Ages range from youthful to 70+ and include both male and female operators. We provide tuition ab initio to all three levels of license and much of this is bespoke. We do not charge for training and our group of tutors are always kept busy.
We meet every Thursday night at the Stanley Crook Village Hall at about 7.45pm. Anyone is welcome anytime and we encourage people to take up the hobby of Amateur Radio. BARAC have facilities for operating, construction, reading or just chatting. There is also a fully-equipped kitchen in the Hall.
The club holds the call sign G(X)4TTF and runs and maintains the VHF repeater GB3CD, sited at the village hall, and its 24/7 echolink, courtesy of Brian G7OCK. .We also have a special relationship with the Eden Valley Railway GB2EVR and have originated and run the annual international radio amateur event “RAILWAYS ON THE AIR” event late September. GB2EVR operates from a permanent Radio Shack at Warcop railway station near Appleby in Cumbria. BARAC had permission to install an antenna inside a railway carriage to attempt a mobile HF transmission. This feat was first was done in 1923 between Kings Cross and Newcastle, wooden coaches in those days to fit antennas internally. Steel coaches have to have them fitted externally! NO mobile transmissions yet! The transmitter used for GB2EVR transmissions and experiments over the last twelve years most weekends has been the Kenwood TS-570D.