Background

Over the weekend 26-27 July, the village of Codford (near Warminster, Wiltshire) will be remembering the beginning of the First World War.

The whole of its recreation field, and village hall, will be turned into a living museum – filled with memorabilia, reconstructions, and many other forms of exhibit.  

Visitors will be able to see how a quiet rural valley would have looked almost 100 years ago, when it was temporarily home to tens of thousands of troops.  

Local historians have been working on the project for some three years now, and it promises to be impressive.

One of the exhibits on the recreation field will be a working earth-mode wireless telegraph.  This will be able to send messages in Morse code, using Earth-Mode, between a Yeomanry area (on the northern edge of the field) and a 'front line' trench (on the south side).

The telegraph is being built by a small team of enthusiasts, who are mostly members of the Trowbridge and District Amateur Radio Club.  They also plan to operate / demonstrate it over the weekend, but will need support from others to make that happen.