Rugby Amateur Transmitting Society (RATS, G4APD) has an evolving
project to commemorate the centenary of Rugby G.P.O. Radio station’s
first official morse transmissions from the GBR transmitter on 1st
January 1926.

There is much history online but in summary ‘GBR’ Tx was on 16kc/s,
350kW to a vast aerial array at top of 12x 820ft. high masts.
Transmissions were Machine Generated Morse at speeds of circa 100wpm.
‘Machine’ was truly electro mechanical both for Tx and also distant Rx
stations.

Our operation will be under call-sign GB100GBR, allocated to us by Ofcom
and valid until 31 Dec.2026.

We would like to achieve some historical authenticity but have had to
abandon the idea of 16kHz, 350kW and antenna array!
However we are left with the achievable objective of transmitting morse
code but downsizing the original setup to an IC-7300, 100W and dipole
antenna.

The plan is to generate some high speed morse coded radio transmissions
but unsure whether there will be anyone able to decode 100wpm?
Once we run out of QRQ stations then we are contemplating the use of
much slower speed say 15wpm or less so as to encourage relative
beginners to have a go at working an unusual callsign.

Slower speed suits us because although RATS has 50+ members very very
few have any morse capability, we have only 6 weeks to improve!