Welcome to the G4HRO website

The Mow Cop & District Amateur Radio Society (MADARS) began life in 1977, as a small group of amateurs meeting up for a regular weeknight drink.

The first meeting room was The Crown Inn, on the slopes of Mow Cop. It was here that the idea to form a small club & apply for a club licence was formed. The call sign G4HRO was reserved for us by the Home Office & would be issued when it came due for issue. (UK calls were issued in strict alphabetical order back then).

The clubs founder members were; Tony Bentley G8MMG, Nigel Cooper G8NYZ, Clive Davis G3ZFC, Chris Fawkes G8MBF (now G4UDG), Carle Merrill G8JUX & Gary Orford G4FRO. When G4HRO was issued to us in 1978 Gary was nominated to become the first keeper of the call.

When Gary's work caused him to move away a few years later, the stewardship of G4HRO passed to new member John Day G4OEI. Sadly however, John became SK around 1990 & at this point the call fell into a bureaucratic black hole. The responsibility for issuing licences had by then, passed to OFCOM who seem to change their policies almost weekly, hence the black hole.

In the intervening years several of us tried to get OFCOM to give us the call sign back but to no avail, with the reason for their refusal changing each time we tried. An attempt by Carle in 2020 was finally successful and G4HRO is back on the air with Carle G8JUX now the holder on the clubs behalf.

More recently, G4HRO has been chasing special event stations on the H.F. bands.