CREG Home Page

The Cave Radio & Electronics Group

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The UK-based Cave Radio & Electronics Group (CREG) is a Special Interest Group of the British Cave Research Association. We are probably the world's leading organisation of its kind. Our aims are "to encourage the development and use of radio communication and other electronic and computer equipment in caving and related activities".
Our group was established 38 years ago, in 1988. In December 2017, just prior to our 30th anniversary, we published our 100th journal. Our latest journal, issue 133, was published in March 2026. Our followers include cavers, radio amateurs, electronic engineers, academics and industrial organisations.
Our Journal: We publish a regular Journal (ISSN 1361-4800) that provides a forum for people to discuss ideas and to exchange information. Our journal page has a list of contents of each issue, plus download links. There is also a search engine and info about paper subscriptions and the availability of back-issues.
CREG news: You can catch up on recent news by visiting our News Forum. If you would like to receive news items by email you can sign up to the CREG-Announce e-list.
Contacts: See the Special Interest Groups heading in the list of BCRA contacts.
Questions and Answers: Over the last 38 years, and 133 journals, we have published information on many topics related to cave radio and electronics. You can search our journals online or you can try asking a question in our forum.
Field Meetings: We organise regular informal field meetings, usually in the spring and the autumn. Sometimes, these will coincide with BCRA science meetings. Search for field meet in our journals. (In the past, we have organised an annual Cave Technology Symposium, but that is not a regular event).
The HeyPhone was designed by John Hey in 2001, with the support of CREG. Technically, it is a standard design of single-sideband radio, usually operating at 87kHz USB. Although it can be used with tuned induction loop antennas, it is usually operated with earthed electrodes separated by 25m to 100m. Our HeyPhone page contains 'blueprints' but please note that this design is no longer supported by CREG and it has largely been superceded by more recent designs that are described in our journal – search for micro heyphone or nicola, for example.
Speleonics was a similar publication to ours in the USA, from the Communications & Electronics Section of the USA's National Speleological Society (NSS), which was published from 1985–2013 (29 issues). It was also the name of the Section's discussion forum (a Mailman list). However, at the time of writing (October 2022) we are unsure if the Section still exists, as neither the web pages nor the mailing list are accessible. Archived copies of Speleonics are still available on the CREG web site, together with an index and table of contents.
Volunteers are the mainstay of CREG. If there is anything you would like to do for CREG, please get in touch. We always welcome articles, photos and letters for our journal. Our editorial team can even convert your rough notes and sketches into a fully-fledged article.

This page, http://bcra.org.uk/creg/index.html was last modified on Mon, 27 Apr 2026 12:12:42 +0100