International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend (ILLW)

This Weekend brings International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend (ILLW) on the Air to the Ham bands, I have been on Air and have made QSO with many Stations that have set up portable Ham stations, some with special Callsigns at various Lighthouses around the world.There are over 15000 possible Lighthouses to contact around the world so you can imagine that's an awful lot of potential contacts to make and I doubt that all of the Worlds Lighthouses/Lightships have been activated by Radio Amateurs from all over the Globe.
During the afternoon of Saturday i managed 22 contacts working 14 different Countries on 3 bands which were 80M, 40M and 20M. I was happily surprised to run into Ian GM3SEC under the Call GB2LS located at Southerness Lighthouse SCO223 with his fellow Hams from Wigtownshire Amateur Radio Club SCOTLAND - U.K.
Ian GM3SEC was putting out a big signal on the ft100 He was running, this was received by my ft847 and G5RV antenna.
If you have read the post on Radio and Astronomy you find info on My visit to Ians Shack in the form of a nice picture of Ian GM3SEC. It was a real pleasure to find and speak with him on 80Meters from my home QTH and I hopefully will get many more QSOs with Ian and the other Scottish Hams I have spoken with whilst been in Scotland on our holidays.

I used the G5RV on 40M and 80M and the Hustler 6BTV on 20M with good reports for the 50Watts of power I was running. I feel that the many compliments on my audio quality is probably down to the Adonis AM-DX1 ceramic desk microphone I have in line with just a bit of processor set on the fT847 Earth Station. This has been a good rig working well for Me alongside My FT767GX and FT857 which I also am more than satisfied with. .

I went on to working many more Lighthouse Stations on HF with some good conversation being shared and interesting information regarding the Lighthouses history.
GB2LT Turnberry Lighthouse also located in Scotland and was operated by Peter who went on to tell Me that it was also the site of Robert the Bruce's Castle which had been destroyed and the site was now a lump where Peters antenna system was fixed via the Lighthouse.

Some of the Lighthouse Stations had massive pile ups so some contacts were quick exchanging the relevant info required but even the busiest Stations refrained from just a boring 5/9 & 73. I always enjoy these type of activations/special events as you get to pass a few words and meet some interesting stations from all over the World.

Thanks to all who made the effort to activate the Lighthouses World wide 73 ;-)
Here are a few of the International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend (ILLW) On The Air I worked and managed to get in My log
click on log to enlargee

Here is LEASOWE LIGHT HOUSE Activated by GB4LL and worked on 80 Meters by myself among many other Lighthouse Stations which have been active on all bands this weekend and if you have missed todays activities there will more Lighthouse Stations throughout this Weekend.
LEASOWE Lighthouse on The Wirral Peninsula 6 KM SW of the City of LIVERPOOL. The Lighthouse is the oldest brick built Lighthouse in the U.K and the first cavity wall Lighthouse in the World built in 1763 using over 1.000000 hand made bricks it stands 110FT high. As you probably know already there are many different types of Lighthouse old and new, some are in remote places on the shoreline and some are out at sea on a small rock some where. Where ever they are located you will find a friendly Radio Amateur calling CQ WLOTA, good hunting as you turn the VFO on your radio receiver!

Short wave listeners can find activity around 3.600-3.800 Lower side band (LSB), 7.40-7.100 (LSB) and 14.110-14.350 Upper Side Band (USB) 73 thanks for visiting good luck with monitoring and listening.