900 International Marconi Day Contacts
/The Norfolk Amateur Radio Club (NARC) ran the all-day event to commemorate Caister's original Marconi Wireless Station, which was established in 1900.
The station was in a house in the High Street known as Pretoria Villa and its original purpose was to communicate with ships in the North Sea and the Cross Sands lightship.
NARC normally operates from Caister Lifeboat, but due to the Covid restrictions the amateurs operated from their own home stations this year.
Using the call GB0CMS, and a mixture of Morse code, speech (SSB) and digital modes (FT8), the operation ran from midnight to midnight and contacts were made with other radio amateurs across the UK, Europe, Asia, South America and the USA.
“Last year’s event was canceled due to COVID, so we were determined to put on a station this year to commemorate Marconi’s birthday.
Everyone pulled out the stops and we were able to operate through the night with Chris G0DWV making 300 contacts to start us off.”
Notable contacts were made with New Zealand, The Philippines, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Panama, the Falkland Islands and Indonesia.
On Saturday, the closest to Guglielmo Marconi's birthday, stations around the world are set up at sites with historical links to the inventor's work. These include Poldhu in England; Cape Cod Massachusetts; Glace Bay, Nova Scotia; Villa Griffone, Bologna, Italy and many others.
The rest of the event featured operations from Tony G0OOR, Gordon G3PXT, Malcolm, G3PDH, Roger G3LDI, Jim G3YLA, Steve G0KYA, Phil G4LPP and Andy M0NKR.
“QSO levels were high, but tailed off as the day wore on as you would expect.
I even received an email from John G7MAR/MM who was on the cruise ship “Crystal Serenity”, a few miles off the coast of Singapore. John heard us but couldn’t get through, unfortunately.
I think everyone made a great effort and it was nice to support International Marconi Day, even if we weren’t able to operate from Caister – hopefully, we will be back next year.”
