Bourn NDB BOU, June 30th, 2005

You will find Bourn (airfield) about 6 miles (10 km) west of Cambridge. At Cambridge take the A428 to the west. After 6 miles (10 km) turn left towards Bourn. Along this road is a telecommunications mast on the RHS that is visible from great distance. The airfield is on the LHS. First you see an entrance to some big buildings. Then there is a garage on the LHS. About 0.6 mile (1 km) after you left the A428 there is a gate that provides access to a parking area and to the runway.
Beware! The road to the airport buildings is also in use by aeroplanes. Be careful!
For the airfield buildings you have to turn twice to the right. They are behind some bushes. The NDB is near the airport buildings.

It's not easy to find your way to this beacon without precise directions. We were lucky enough when we asked someone for directions who was well known at the airfield. So he guided us to the airport buildings and we could park near the aeroplanes.
We went into the building, to explain the reason of our visit and to ask permission for taking pictures. We haven't had a better or friendlier reception in those weeks as we had here: Please sit down. Never heard of this hobby so take a cup of coffee and tell us more about it. You came from Holland to take pictures of beacons? You know, we should have had a flight to Lelystad (Netherlands) today but we had to cancel that because of the weather conditions. One of the pilots told us that just a few weeks ago he had visited Budel airfield in the south of the Netherlands.
The NDB was bought from another airfield and has an antenna mast that's a kind of a kit, easy to screw together. We had a long talk, made a picture of the transmitter unit in a room below the tower. We could hear the Morse generator making clicking noises.
After an hour we went outside to make pictures of the antenna mast.

We have had more friendly receptions at airfields, but Bourn was the best we had this two weeks.
But I can't promise that it stays like that when they get every week freaks like us coming to visit them.

Wim received the next e-mail:

Wim
Many thanks for the link, all very interesting. Sadly the NDB is now gone, the EU wanted a large increase in the third party liability insurance and we could not afford the premium. I think this happened to a number of NDBs on small airfields in the UK. I can't remember who we sold it to but they were primarily interested in the aerial mast, which was a portable unit which could be easily erected on site without any special equipment. We didn't take any pictures of it before it went so I am very pleased to see your pictures.
Best wishes and call in and see us if you are in the UK again.

Trevor Gilpin