ILLW 2019

Lighthouses QSL Card

Introduction

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.

The John SebastianThe John Sebastian

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.

Mark M0SKV Operating Ken M7MYU LoggingOperating

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.

Refurbished GunwalesRefurbished Gunwales

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.

Generations of Operators Ken M7MYU and Cyril G3XEDMark M0SKV Operating with Ken M7MYU Logging

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 of Contact Time Station Worked Band or Freq (MHz) Mode TX RX Operator’s Name QTH IARU Locator Distance (km) Notes
RST No. RST No.
17/08/2019 09:58 PA6FUN 40m SSB 59   59     Harlingen Lighthouse      
17/08/2019 10:14 G4WBV 40m SSB 59   59   Roger Seamills Bristol      
17/08/2019 10:18 DK5KK 40m SSB 57   59            
17/08/2019 10:20 GB2LG 40m SSB 59   59     Mull of Galloway     UK0086
17/08/2019 10:22 F4VRF 40m SSB 59   59   Alan        
17/08/2019 10:25 MM7WAB/P 40m SSB 57   59   Paul        
17/08/2019 10:27 GB2ELH 40m SSB 57   59   Tony Eshaness Lighthouse     UK0058
17/08/2019 10:29 M0LJT 40m SSB 59   59   Eddie        
17/08/2019 10:32 GI4TAJ 40m SSB 59   59   Joe        
17/08/2019 10:35 M7BOD 40m SSB 59   59   Graham        
17/08/2019 10:41 GB2RL 40m SSB 59   59   Ian Roker Light     UK0099
17/08/2019 10:50 M0ZIB 40m SSB 57   59            
17/08/2019 10:54 EI2HPB 40m SSB 59   59   Dave County Sligo      
17/08/2019 10:56 M0ZID 40m SSB 59   59   Sid Newcastle      
17/08/2019 11:01 GM0VXA 40m SSB 57   59   Paul Glasgow      
17/08/2019 11:05 GB2AL 40m SSB 55   59   Fred Ardnamurchan Lighthouse     UK0017
17/08/2019 11:20 2I0BOW 40m SSB 59   59   William Ballymeaner      
17/08/2019 11:25 GB0HLH 40m SSB 59   59   Tom The Heugh Lighthouse, Hartlepool     UK0188
17/08/2019 11:35 PA3EPA 40m SSB 59   59            
17/08/2019 11:38 G0GWL 40m SSB 58   58   David Durham      
17/08/2019 12:37 EI2WRC/P 20m SSB 59   59   David Cow      
17/08/2019 12:48 GB0EUL 40m SSB 59   59   Rich East Usk Lighthouse     UK0159
17/08/2019 12:59 GB1OL 40m SSB 59   59     Brough of Birsay     UK0191
17/08/2019 13:07 G0DTX 40m SSB 59   59   John        
17/08/2019 13:09 GM4MTI 40m SSB 57   57   Stewart Oban      
17/08/2019 13:11 G3XKT 40m SSB 57   57   Tony        
17/08/2019 13:12 EI3GO 40m SSB 59   59   Martin        
17/08/2019 13:14 GB5PSL 40m SSB 59   59   Phil Plover Scar     UK0018
17/08/2019 13:16 M0XOC 40m SSB 57   59   Mike Wigan      
17/08/2019 13:17 G0JPS 40m SSB 57   59     Bristol      
17/08/2019 13:18 MM0INH 40m SSB 55   59   Dale Edinburgh      
17/08/2019 13:19 DH7IF 40m SSB 55   55            
17/08/2019 13:20 2M0RHT 40m SSB 33   54            
17/08/2019 13:28 G3LEO 40m SSB 59   59   Gerald Rippon      
17/08/2019 13:32 M7FLY 40m SSB 57   59            
17/08/2019 13:34 GB0AVL 40m SSB 55   59     Avon Light lighthouses North and South     UK0225/UK0226
17/08/2019 13:35 M0HUE 40m SSB 57   58   Joe Filton      
17/08/2019 13:44 G4NFS 40m SSB 59   59   Norman        
17/08/2019 14:21 MM0XET/P 40m SSB 59   59   Garry Tayport High/Low East/West      
18/08/2019 09:50 GB2TD 80m SSB 59   59     Penmon Point / Trwyn Du     UK0047
18/08/2019 09:52 G4RWI 80m SSB 59   57   Nigel Watford      
18/08/2019 10:16 G2DGB 80m SSB 57   59            
18/08/2019 10:20 G8UWW 80m SSB 55         Bedfordshire      
18/08/2019 10:21 G0OGS 80m SSB 59   59   Steve Wolverhampton      
18/08/2019 10:30 G0MZK 80m SSB 59   59   Ron        
18/08/2019 10:31 G3TGB 80m SSB 57   59   Brian Braintree      
18/08/2019 10:33 G0NEV 80m SSB 59   59   Mike Weymouth      
18/08/2019 10:34 M6YDZ 80m SSB 56   59   Mark Wokingham      
18/08/2019 10:37 G6KNK 80m SSB 57   59   Uxbridge Uxbridge      
18/08/2019 10:40 GB0TBW 80m SSB 57   58   Trinity Bouy Wharf Lightship 95 (LV95)     UK0209
18/08/2019 10:45 G6OHM 80m SSB 57       Andy Cambridge      
18/08/2019 10:56 G0LQI 80m SSB 59   59   Mike Weymouth      
18/08/2019 10:57 M0VTG 80m SSB 57   58   David Peterborough      
18/08/2019 11:01 GW4ARG 80m SSB 56   59     Anglesey      
18/08/2019 11:08 G4FJH 80m SSB 59   59     Hanham      
18/08/2019 11:09 G4AZU 80m SSB 59   59   John Winchester      
18/08/2019 11:12 2E0RIP 80m SSB 57                
18/08/2019 11:13 G8KBH/P 80m SSB 58   58   Dave Blackpool      
18/08/2019 11:15 G0BYK 80m SSB 55   59            
18/08/2019 11:19 G3YZY 80m SSB 59   59   Howard        
18/08/2019 11:22 G3SZO 80m SSB 59   59   Nottingham Nottingham      
18/08/2019 11:26 G3YED 80m SSB 56   59   Richard Stratford upon Avon      
18/08/2019 11:28 GB2IWM 80m SSB 56   59   Clive        
18/08/2019 11:32 G6EED 80m SSB 59   59   Collumpton Collumpton      
18/08/2019 11:35 G7FTD 80m SSB 54   53   Ken        
18/08/2019 11:37 G0BZK 80m SSB 59   59   Ron        
18/08/2019 11:41 G0WKK 80m SSB 59   59   Cliff Andover      
18/08/2019 11:49 M0VKR 80m SSB 57   58   Yeovil Yeovil      
18/08/2019 11:55 G4LAH 80m SSB 59   59     Isle of Wight      
18/08/2019 11:59 M0ZGB 80m SSB 59   59   Johnathon Swindon      
18/08/2019 12:01 MW7KJC 80m SSB 58   59   Kevin Pontypool      
18/08/2019 12:03 G0VEO 80m SSB 59   59     Liverpool      
18/08/2019 12:12 F6FCM/P 40m SSB 55   59   Patrick        
18/08/2019 12:13 DH4JF/P 40m SSB 57   59            
18/08/2019 12:17 GB2AIR 40m SSB 59   59   Dave South Yorkshire Air Museum      
18/08/2019 12:22 GM7ESM 40m SSB 57   56   Howeard        
18/08/2019 12:25 M7AGB 40m SSB 59   59   Alan North Yorkshire      
18/08/2019 12:51 GM8OFP 20m SSB 59   58   Geoff Isle of Foy Orkney Islands EU009      
18/08/2019 13:23 G0UQT 80m SSB 59   59   Steve Bridgwater      
18/08/2019 13:34 HB9BQR 40m SSB 55   55   Roland        
18/08/2019 13:35 F4VSU 40m SSB 57   59            
18/08/2019 13:37 MI0TGO 40m SSB 57   59   Brian Belfast      
18/08/2019 13:39 PA0RMS 40m SSB 55       Hanny        
18/08/2019 13:40 MM6PFT 40m SSB 53   57   David        
18/08/2019 13:41 DL7LM 40m SSB 55   57            
18/08/2019 13:42 G1HSL 40m SSB 59   59   John Ipswich      
18/08/2019 13:43 PA0AKN 40m SSB 58   59   Don Rotterdam      
18/08/2019 13:45 F4VPL 40m SSB 59   59   Dave        
18/08/2019 13:45 M7SWR/M 40m SSB 56   59   Steven Durham      
18/08/2019 13:49 DL8YRM 40m SSB 55   55   Ray        
18/08/2019 13:50 GB2THL 40m SSB 55   55   Eddie Tod Head Lighthouse     UK0218
18/08/2019 13:53 F6GWP 40m SSB 57   59   Phil        
18/08/2019 13:57 GM4FQE 40m SSB 57   59   Eric        
18/08/2019 14:04 G0EGW 40m SSB 59   59            
18/08/2019 14:06 M0IOK 40m SSB 59   59   Dave Hull      
18/08/2019 14:09 GM0IIO 40m SSB 59   59   George        
18/08/2019 14:13 M0SHK 40m SSB 58   59   Ken        
18/08/2019 14:16 G0MEE 40m SSB 55   55   Brian        
18/08/2019 14:18 MM0RKN 40m SSB 55   55   Carrie        
18/08/2019 14:20 DH7IF 40m SSB 57   57            
18/08/2019 14:22 EI8FI 40m SSB 57   57   Kevin        
18/08/2019 14:45 G4BIM 80m SSB 59   59   Victor Isle of Wight      
18/08/2019 14:49 2E0KKA 80m SSB 59   59     Dartmoor National Park