The first meeting of the Northampton Wireless Club as it was then known took place on the evening of Wednesday 4th June 1913, as reported in the Northampton Daily Echo a few days later, at the YMCA, where some 30 wireless enthusiasts came together under the chairmanship of Mr Rolfe.

This makes us the fifth oldest club in England after Derby (the oldest), Liverpool, Birmingham and Newcastle. Apart from Derby these were founded in the early months of 1913.

At the initial meeting along with electing a committee and discussing the setting up of a club station, Mr F Wright, Headmaster of Bugbrooke School, was elected President. He had been very active experimenting with wireless in the early years of the century, and was teaching Morse code and radio construction to the pupils of his school. He had written several articles in mechanics magazines between 1907—1909 about his work, as a result of which he and the school became quite famous and were reported in the local and national daily papers. They were as well known in the early years of the century as the Kettering Grammar School Satellite Group were later to become. He may also have been one of the first to hear about, or hear, the Titanic disaster. Mr Wright was issued the callsign 'WFX' for his own and the school's use. We have asked for and been issued the call sign GB75WFX to commemorate his part in the foundation of the club. Such was Mr Wright’s fame that on 12 June 1914 he visited the Eiffel Tower station and a signal was transmitted to the school and Northampton Wireless Club who had been told to listen. The message was 'Wright is here’. How many heard it? We don’t know.

Little information about the club remains as the records which did exist have been lost. There is a list of members for 1923 when we became associated with the National Society. No records of war or other service records of members exist.

Anecdotes from members thus far, go back to 1956 when the club would meet at Allen's Pram Works, Duke Street, Northampton.  In the late 1970's, the club moved to Thornton House, Thornton Park, Kingsthorpe, Northampton where it was based for a number of years until 1990.  The club then moved to Hervey Street, Northampton for a year before moving to the R.A.F.A. Club, Somerset Street, Northampton for another year.  The new venue became the British Timken Sports & Social Club then moving to The Old White Hart for 3 - 4 years.  The penultimate move was to the United Trades Club in Balmoral Road, Kingsthorpe, which sadly closed down in April 2009 and we were on the move again.

We now meet on the third Thursday of each month at 20:00 in the Doddridge Centre in St James, and there are informal meetings on the other Thursdays.  See the 'What's on' page for further details.

Members are active in National Field Days where stations are set up in fields to test the ability to operate and maintain a station under difficult conditions. In 1962 whilst taking part in such an event on the Isle of Wight a light aircraft crashed near the station, from which the emergency services were called and contact maintained until they arrived. Members are also involved in RAYNET the Radio Amateurs Emergency Network, formed in 1953 after the East Coast floods, to provide emergency communications for the Police, Fire and Ambulance services. They are on standby in case of disaster, natural or man made!

The members cover all aspects of Amateur Radio in their activities, from simple home constructed low power equipment to highly sophisticated home made or purchased equipment. Some of the activities, aside from the normal methods of communication by voice or Morse code are: