Former TRINITY LIGHT VESSEL 55, now renamed the ‘John Sebastian’ in honour of Bristol’s famous explorers, is moored in Bathurst Basin in the centre of Bristol and has her own postal address, namely: ‘The John Sebastian, Bathurst Basin, Bristol BS1 4RL’. She is now the home to the Cabot Cruising Club who have produced an interesting history document covering her past service. However, there are some specific details that will be of interest to radio hams:
Lat/Long (WGS84 Geoid): 51.446579°,-2.595022°
IARU: IO81qk
IOTA: EU005 (UK Mainland)
WAB: ST57 – England
OSGR: ST587721
ILLW Reference: UK0176
Location
Operation
August has, for some inexplicable reason, become the month of lighthouses. Countries all over the world have become involved in one form or another of lighthouse activity. Some years ago the United States Congress declared 7 August as their National Lighthouse Day and during that first week in August amateur radio operators in America set up portable stations at lighthouses and endeavour to make contact with each other. This event is known as the US National Lighthouse Week.
In Britain the Association of Lighthouse Keepers, ALK, conducts International Lighthouse Heritage Weekend on the same weekend as the ILLW in August. Their objective is to encourage Lighthouse managers, keepers and owners to open their lighthouse or lightstation and related visitor centres to the public with a view to raising the profile of lighthouses, lightvessels and other navigational aids, and preserving our maritime heritage.
Which is why, on an overcast weekend in August, the stalwart members of the South Bristol Amateur Radio Club once again took over former Light Vessel 55 (now the ‘John Sebastian’ and home to the Cabot Cruising Club) in Bristol’s historic harbour.
We like this event as, although we operate in a rather exposed position on the deck of the Lightship, several aspects of the setup make life very straightforward, namely:
Our doublet antenna is supported by the lantern tower and erected using a lanyard making pulling the antenna up to full height very simple and avoiding the need for complex guying arrangements as the lantern tower is very securely fixed and guyed;
The length of the Lightship means that our doublet antenna can be secured to the bow and stern of the vessel without any need to secure anything on the dockside making a very maritime orientated antenna arrangement; and
The Cabot Cruising Club have installed outdoor rated mains sockets on the deck to allow them to undertake their repair works as well as light outside events in the warmer months, so no trailing of cables is necessary making for a very safe operation.
The Cruising Club have continued to repair and refurbish the former Lightship which was originally commissioned in 1885, the most recent additions are the newly varnished timber gunwales at the stern.
This year a number of members took part or contacted the station, in no particular order: Mark M0SKV, Andy G7KNA, Cyril G3XED, Ken M7MYU, as well as contacts with Steve G0UQT and Eddie M0LJT.
Equipment Used:
The equipment in use followed the tried and tested setup of previous years, we even stuck to a simple setup throughout the weekend with no messing around with alternative setups unlike Mills on the Air earlier in the year. Regular readers will, we are sure, be pleased to learn that we have replaced the faulty laptop with a new i7 machine donated by a leading Engineering Consultancy in the City (thank you Clarkebond) and recovered all of our historic logs except for the fateful Saturday of Mills on the Air 2019 from our eQSL account and the website logs. Lesson learnt! Not only do we now have the eQSL backup which contains limited QSL information but we now dump our logs in ADIF format to our Cloud storage account which allows us to preserve the additional fields such as name, QTH etc. In the past our CQRLog has allowed us to greet repeat contacts by name and tell them when we last contacted them. Sadly we now have to rebuild the additional information to get back to that position, but it won’t take long and we can still tell repeat contacts how often they have worked our various special event stations.
Nissei DPS300GL Power Supply
Yaesu FT-991 Multi-mode HF/6m/2m/70cm Transceiver
MFJ 993 Auto ATU
80m doublet fed with 450Ω Ladder Line
Acer Aspire 8942 Laptop running CQRLog under Ubuntu MATE 18.04LTS
GB0CCC Log 2019
Date (UTC)
Time (UTC)
Station Worked
Band or Frequency
Mode
RST
Operators Name
QTH
Notes
Sent
Rec'd
17/08/19
09:58
PA6FUN
40m
SSB
59
59
Harlingen Lighthouse
17/08/19
10:14
G4WBV
40m
SSB
59
59
Roger
Seamills Bristol
17/08/19
10:18
DK5KK
40m
SSB
57
59
17/08/19
10:20
GB2LG
40m
SSB
59
59
Mull of Galloway
UK0086
17/08/19
10:22
F4VRF
40m
SSB
59
59
Alan
17/08/19
10:25
MM7WAB/P
40m
SSB
57
59
Paul
17/08/19
10:27
GB2ELH
40m
SSB
57
59
Tony
Eshaness Lighthouse
UK0058
17/08/19
10:29
M0LJT
40m
SSB
59
59
Eddie
17/08/19
10:32
GI4TAJ
40m
SSB
59
59
Joe
17/08/19
10:35
M7BOD
40m
SSB
59
59
Graham
17/08/19
10:41
GB2RL
40m
SSB
59
59
Ian
Roker Light
UK0099
17/08/19
10:50
M0ZIB
40m
SSB
57
59
17/08/19
10:54
EI2HPB
40m
SSB
59
59
Dave
County Sligo
17/08/19
10:56
M0ZID
40m
SSB
59
59
Sid
Newcastle
17/08/19
11:01
GM0VXA
40m
SSB
57
59
Paul
Glasgow
17/08/19
11:05
GB2AL
40m
SSB
55
59
Fred
Ardnamurchan Lighthouse
UK0017
17/08/19
11:20
2I0BOW
40m
SSB
59
59
William
Ballymeaner
17/08/19
11:25
GB0HLH
40m
SSB
59
59
Tom
The Heugh Lighthouse, Hartlepool
UK0188
17/08/19
11:35
PA3EPA
40m
SSB
59
59
17/08/19
11:38
G0GWL
40m
SSB
58
58
David
Durham
17/08/19
12:37
EI2WRC/P
20m
SSB
59
59
David
Cow
17/08/19
12:48
GB0EUL
40m
SSB
59
59
Rich
East Usk Lighthouse
UK0159
17/08/19
12:59
GB1OL
40m
SSB
59
59
Brough of Birsay
UK0191
17/08/19
13:07
G0DTX
40m
SSB
59
59
John
17/08/19
13:09
GM4MTI
40m
SSB
57
57
Stewart
Oban
17/08/19
13:11
G3XKT
40m
SSB
57
57
Tony
17/08/19
13:12
EI3GO
40m
SSB
59
59
Martin
17/08/19
13:14
GB5PSL
40m
SSB
59
59
Phil
Plover Scar
UK0018
17/08/19
13:16
M0XOC
40m
SSB
57
59
Mike
Wigan
17/08/19
13:17
G0JPS
40m
SSB
57
59
Bristol
17/08/19
13:18
MM0INH
40m
SSB
55
59
Dale
Edinburgh
17/08/19
13:19
DH7IF
40m
SSB
55
55
17/08/19
13:20
2M0RHT
40m
SSB
33
54
17/08/19
13:28
G3LEO
40m
SSB
59
59
Gerald
Rippon
17/08/19
13:32
M7FLY
40m
SSB
57
59
17/08/19
13:34
GB0AVL
40m
SSB
555
59
Avon Light lighthouses North and South
UK0225/UK0226
17/08/19
13:35
M0HUE
40m
SSB
57
58
Joe
Filton
17/08/19
13:44
G4NFS
40m
SSB
59
59
Norman
17/08/19
14:21
MM0XET/P
40m
SSB
59
59
Garry
Tayport High/Low East/West
18/08/19
09:50
GB2TD
80m
SSB
59
59
Penmon Point / Trwyn Du
UK0047
18/08/19
09:52
G4RWI
80m
SSB
59
57
Nigel
Watford
18/08/19
10:16
G2DGB
80m
SSB
57
59
18/08/19
10:20
G8UWW
80m
SSB
55
Bedfordshire
18/08/19
10:21
G0OGS
80m
SSB
59
59
Steve
Wolverhampton
18/08/19
10:30
G0MZK
80m
SSB
59
59
Ron
18/08/19
10:31
G3TGB
80m
SSB
57
59
Brian
Braintree
18/08/19
10:33
G0NEV
80m
SSB
59
59
Mike
Weymouth
18/08/19
10:34
M6YDZ
80m
SSB
56
59
Mark
Wokingham
18/08/19
10:37
G6KNK
80m
SSB
57
59
Uxbridge
Uxbridge
18/08/19
10:40
GB0TBW
80m
SSB
57
58
Trinity bouy wharf
Lightship 95 (LV95)
UK0209
18/08/19
10:45
G6OHM
80m
SSB
57
Andy
Cambridge
18/08/19
10:56
G0LQI
80m
SSB
59
59
Mike
Weymouth
18/08/19
10:57
M0VTG
80m
SSB
57
58
David
Peterborough
18/08/19
11:01
GW4ARG
80m
SSB
56
59
Anglesey
18/08/19
11:08
G4FJH
80m
SSB
59
59
Hanham
18/08/19
11:09
G4AZU
80m
SSB
59
59
John
Winchester
18/08/19
11:12
2E0RIP
80m
SSB
57
18/08/19
11:13
G8KBH/P
80m
SSB
58
58
Dave
Blackpool
18/08/19
11:15
G0BYK
80m
SSB
55
59
18/08/19
11:19
G3YZY
80m
SSB
59
59
Howard
18/08/19
11:22
G3SZO
80m
SSB
59
59
Nottingham
Nottingham
18/08/19
11:26
G3YED
80m
SSB
56
59
Richard
Stratford upon Avon
18/08/19
11:28
GB2IWM
80m
SSB
56
59
Clive
18/08/19
11:32
G6EED
80m
SSB
59
59
Collumpton
Collumpton
18/08/19
11:35
G7FTD
80m
SSB
54
53
Ken
18/08/19
11:37
G0BZK
80m
SSB
59
59
Ron
18/08/19
11:41
G0WKK
80m
SSB
59
59
Cliff
Andover
18/08/19
11:49
M0VKR
80m
SSB
57
58
Yeovil
Yeovil
18/08/19
11:55
G4LAH
80m
SSB
59
59
Isle of Wight
18/08/19
11:59
M0ZGB
80m
SSB
59
59
Johnathon
Swindon
18/08/19
12:01
MW7KJC
80m
SSB
58
59
Kevin
Pontypool
18/08/19
12:03
G0VEO
80m
SSB
59
59
Liverpool
18/08/19
12:12
F6FCM/P
40m
SSB
55
59
Patrick
18/08/19
12:13
DH4JF/P
40m
SSB
57
59
18/08/19
12:17
GB2AIR
40m
SSB
59
59
Dave
South Yorkshire Air Museum
18/08/19
12:22
GM7ESM
40m
SSB
57
56
Howeard
18/08/19
12:25
M7AGB
40m
SSB
59
59
Alan
North Yorkshire
18/08/19
12:51
GM8OFP
20m
SSB
59
58
Geoff
Isle of Foy Orkney Islands EU009
18/08/19
13:23
G0UQT
80m
SSB
59
59
Steve
Bridgwater
18/08/19
13:34
HB9BQR
40m
SSB
55
55
Roland
18/08/19
13:35
F4VSU
40m
SSB
57
59
18/08/19
13:37
MI0TGO
40m
SSB
57
59
Brian
Belfast
18/08/19
13:39
PA0RMS
40m
SSB
55
Hanny
18/08/19
13:40
MM6PFT
40m
SSB
53
57
David
18/08/19
13:41
DL7LM
40m
SSB
55
57
18/08/19
13:42
G1HSL
40m
SSB
59
59
John
Ipswich
18/08/19
13:43
PA0AKN
40m
SSB
58
59
Don
Rotterdam
18/08/19
13:45
F4VPL
40m
SSB
59
59
Dave
18/08/19
13:45
M7SWR/M
40m
SSB
56
59
Steven
Durham
18/08/19
13:49
DL8YRM
40m
SSB
55
55
Ray
18/08/19
13:50
GB2THL
40m
SSB
55
55
Eddie
Tod Head Lighthouse
UK0218
18/08/19
13:53
F6GWP
40m
SSB
57
59
Phil
18/08/19
13:57
GM4FQE
40m
SSB
57
59
Eric
18/08/19
14:04
G0EGW
40m
SSB
59
59
18/08/19
14:06
M0IOK
40m
SSB
59
59
Dave
Hull
18/08/19
14:09
GM0IIO
40m
SSB
59
59
George
18/08/19
14:13
M0SHK
40m
SSB
58
59
Ken
18/08/19
14:16
G0MEE
40m
SSB
55
55
Brian
18/08/19
14:18
MM0RKN
40m
SSB
55
55
Carrie
18/08/19
14:20
DH7IF
40m
SSB
57
57
18/08/19
14:22
EI8FI
40m
SSB
57
57
Kevin
18/08/19
14:45
G4BIM
80m
SSB
59
59
Victor
Isle of Wight
18/08/19
14:49
2E0KKA
80m
SSB
59
59
Dartmoor National Park
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