History, Aims & Activities

The Vintage & Military Amateur Radio Society is based in the UK, but with an international reach. It was set up at an inaugral meeting held at Bletchley Park in 1999 with the aims to:

Encourage the conservation, restoration and use of ‘classic’ electronic equipment, with a principal focus on wireless techniques, whether applied to communications, RADAR or other pulsed signalling systems—but not neglecting line communication, audio recording, mine detecting and so on.

Encourage recording of electronics related history.

Preserve the knowledge and skills needed for;

The use of traditional modes of communications, such as analogue AM, analogue FM, and Morse Code by radio amateurs.

The use of traditional types of component, such as valves, vibrators, leaded components.

The maintenance and restoration of earlier styles of construction.

Provide assistance to museums and similar bodies wherever possible.

Educate and inform the general public about our wireless history.

Society Document Archive

VMARS has an ever growing archive of manuals, circuit diagrams, magazines and other historic literature, currently in the order of 10,000 items that are physically stored in our archive held at the Thorpe Camp Museum in Lincolnshire, once home to the legendary 617 squadron Dam Busters at RAF Woodhall Spa. An ongoing programme of document cleaning, scanning and digitising is undertaken by Society volunteers who then catalogue and index the documents before placing them onto the VMARS_manuals.co.uk website for free open access to anyone who wants to use them.

Sales of Equipment and Spares

Member’s only auction sales of vintage and military equipment are a regular feature of VMARS activity. These are generally held at various Midlands locations in order to enable access for the maximum number of members to attend. Sales are usually catalogued with illustrations and the details circulated with the monthly News Sheet prior to auction day. In some instances where very large quantities of equipment are being sold, items are sold un-catalogued and as seen on auction day.

Since restrictions introduced following the Covid-19 epidemic, VMARS auctions have been carried out online using ZOOM. These auctions remain for VMARS registered members only and full details are published in the regular monthly News Sheet and online in the VMARS forums.

There is a VMARS on-line trading site for members. A wide range of equipment and spares can be bought and sold on here. The monthly News Sheet also contains member’s sales advertisements for their surplus equipment and spares.

For members who are restoring or repairing equipment, the Society holds a substantial quantity of valves which can be purchased at reasonable prices.