Special events

HF propagation conditions have not been great today. There was not much happening on 15m at all.

I worked a couple of special event stations on 20m PSK31. DL100OUI was a special call to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first commercial radio communication between Germany and USA. The operator was Reinhard, DK1IO.

The other one was S503EO which was to commemorate 50 years in amateur radio by the operator Milos, S53EO!

That gives me an idea. My 60th birthday is in a few weeks time, perhaps Ofcom would let me have a special event call to mark that? :)

World Amateur Radio Day

Today is the 88th Anniversary of the founding of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) which is World Amateur Radio Day. Didn't you know that? Well neither did I until I worked CR5IARU on 20m PSK31. Not that I'd have known from working the station. I had to use QRZ.com to find out what the special call was all about.

Perhaps it's just me but I thought the purpose of a special event call was to raise awareness of some particular event or anniversary. In pursuit of which the special event station should give out this information on every contact. But too often it seems to be taken as an opportunity to work as many stations as possible, contest style.

Another special call that I worked today on 20m PSK31 was HF2013TATO. When I asked the operator Jarek what the special call was for my request was ignored. So I had to go on the internet again. From what I could deduce, this special call is to raise awareness of the role of the father in the family. There may be more to it than that but my Polish is not very good. :) But I do know that "tato" means "dad."

GB80PW

The magazine Practical Wireless is celebrating 80 years of publication this year and has a permit to use the special call GB80PW. I don't usually make a point of hunting for special callsigns but as a reader of the magazine I particularly wanted to work this one which I knew would be on today it being the publication date of the October issue and the actual 80th anniversary day.

I switched the K3 to 40 metres which I thought the station would be operating on and and began tuning down the band. Lo and behold, GB80PW was the first station I heard, on 7120kHz, coming in at 5 and 7 at the top of the QSB. I switched the magnetic loop from 30m APRS duty over to the K3 so I had a choice of either the loop or the multiband dipole. Switching between the two there was almost nothing to choose between the two antennas but the magnetic loop just seemed to have the advantage by a whisker so that is what I chose to use.

I cranked the power up to 100 watts. After my first call it was clear that Rob had quite a pile-up of people wanting to work him and he couldn't pick anything out of the pile. For the second call I gave my call twice, once phonetically, and added "... in Cockermouth, Cumbria." Straight away Rob came back with "the station in Cockermouth, Cumbria." I thought that would get his attention as the magazine's technical editor G1TEX comes from here! I went on to have a very nice, if brief, chat with Rob before letting him get back to the pile.

World Kidney Day

With all the news about giant solar flares that could black out communications I was surprised to hear activity on 10 metres. I made a few contacts on SSB with my attic dipole, including A65EE in Dubai and TC2012WKD from Turkey: a special event station for World Kidney Day to raise awareness of the importance of kidneys to our health.

I like to operate on the highest frequencies I can. On the shortest wavelengths small antennas are at the least disadvantage.