Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker, GB0SNB

Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker started life as an RAF ROTOR Station, then a brief period as a civil defence centre through to its most recent life as a Regional Government HQ. Designed for up to 600 military and civilian personnel, possibly even the Prime Minister, their collective task being to organise the survival of the population in the awful aftermath of a nuclear war.

The Bunker had three main lives. Initially as an RAF ROTOR Station and latterly a Regional Government Headquarters, with a brief period in the 1960's as a civil defence centre. There were also spare bunk beds in the tunnel, to help accommodate some of the hundreds of civilian and military personnel that would be stationed here in time of nuclear attack. The bunker was built on land requisitioned from the local farmer J.A.Parrish.

Paradoxically as the heat of the Cold War died down, the bunker and it's ancillary systems were no longer required by the Government, and were costing up to 3 million pounds a year to keep on standby. Upon decommissioning in 1992 the bunker was bought back from the government by the Parrish family, at a closed bid public auction, and hence is now privately owned.

The bunker is both one of the best sites to work at and one of the worst. The site features a 46 meter (150 foot) mast, situated on the top of a large hill. At the top of the mast there is quite a lot of microwave stuff and cell phone equipment, with cabinets of equipment scattered around the base compound. Frank, G7TAX, volunteered to climb the tower to erect antennas on behalf of BRES.

In the image gallery below, Frank can be seen at work 31 meters (100ft) up the tower, clamping the tri-band (6m, 2m, and 70cm) antenna to the mast. He had a bit of luck with the coax from an existing PMR antenna - the connections were the same way round as the one we fitted to our antenna so it was just a matter of swapping it over.

A full sized G5RV antenna was also set up by Frank between the tower and a large pole housing an air raid siren. This met the heliax at the bottom of the bunker mast.

Once the station was up and running, a temporary callsign of GB2SNB was issued, which changed to the now permanent GB0SNB. The bunker is equipped with gear for operation on HF and VHF/UHF. There is also a 24 hour APRS digipeater on 144.8000 MHz.

The gallery below shows most of the photographs relating to the Bunker station:

Design © M1GEO - Content © G0IQK & M1GEO - Updated 12/Sept/2011