Leiston Amateur Radio Club (LARC) was founded in 1959 by Alan Martindale, G3MYA, who had recently obtained his licence and who became aware of a number of people in the East Suffolk area who had heard his transmissions and wanted to become involved in the hobby. Unfortunately many of these founder members moved to other parts of the country in the early 1960s, resulting in a period of suspended animation for the club. However, in 1970 the club was revived – again largely due to the efforts of G3MYA – and has been constantly active since that time, with membership varying from about 19 to 35 at different periods.
The club currently holds meetings on the second Tuesday of every month, the June meeting normally taking the form of a “foxhunt” to find a hidden transmitter. We also organise Beach Antenna days, normally at Dunwich beach. Most Weeks Rod, G3RTB, holds a Morse (CW) session on Wednesday evenings at 19.00 on 145.275 or (S22 if you use those numbers). It’s on a FM channel, so any FM gear will receive the morse as Rod just keys a tone on the FM. These and any of our many events can be found on our events page.
In recent years the club has run a number of training courses, enabling numerous aspiring amateur radio operators to obtain their licences. With the release of the new syllabus, we are working to update the training, to the higher levels, Intermediate and Advanced shortly.
Our meeting venue, The Quaker House Leiston, has full disabled access and facilities. All are welcome and may join our group free for two meetings. After this time we ask that you join our great club. Full membership also gives you access to our online groups.io talk group. Here you can discuss any radio topic and gain the insight of our longer term HAMs and their wide experience on the many areas of this great hobby.