Caister Marconi Radio Station Contacts more than 160 Amateurs in 25 countries
/Radio hams at Caister Lifeboat in Norfolk managed to contact 162 other radio amateurs in 25 different countries on Saturday 23rd April 2022 when they took part in the annual International Marconi Day (IMD) event to mark the inventor's birthday.
Using the call GB0CMS and a mixture of Morse code, telephony (speech) and data (FT8), contacts were made with other radio amateurs across the UK, Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia.
Notable contacts were made with other IMD stations in Newhaven, East Sussex and Chelmsford – the home of Marconi’s original factory.
Other long-distance contacts were made with Ian VK3MO near Melbourne in Victoria, Australia and John VK6WC in Chidlow, Western Australia.
The Norfolk Amateur Radio Club (NARC) ran the all-day special event station at Caister Lifeboat to commemorate the village's original Marconi Wireless Station, which was established at Caister 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.
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 high winds on the dunes at Caister made it difficult to erect our antennas – and they bent alarmingly! But they stayed up all day.
Conditions were better in the morning as there was an ionospheric disturbance in the afternoon which made communication difficult. In all, it was nice to get back to Caister after two years of not being able to operate there due to Covid restrictions.
We made contacts with other radio enthusiasts all over Europe and as far as Asiatic Russia using speech, Morse code and a the highly-efficient FT8 digital mode that Marconi could have only dreamed of.
We never used more than 200 Watts power, and often just 100 Watts– about the same as an incandescent light bulb.
Our thanks go to Caister Lifeboat again for letting us set up the station.”
