Behind The Scenes of the 2o21L Callsign

As amateur radio operators around the world will know, with the London Olympics now underway, the callsigns 2o12L and 2012W are the “must work” callsigns, being the UK’s leading two Olympic stations.

Pete M0PSX and Tom 2E0TNC took a trip from their home QTHs in Essex over to the Royal Borough of Greenwich, to take a look behind the scenes of the flagship amateur radio station Two Oscar One Two London.

The station went live on the 25th of July, and plans to operate 24 hours a day for seven weeks, wrapping up on the 9th of September 2012. As well as transmitting around the clock, the station is open to the public from 10am to 4pm, and is operated by CVRS, the Cray Valley Radio Society.

The team is based at the Avery Hill Activity Centre, Avery Hill Road, New Eltham – A couple of minutes walk from Net Eltham mainline railway station (1 20 minute trip from London Bridge)

We caught up with Team Leader Bob M0MCV, to find out more about the station, and we also spoke to one of the busy operating team, Kevin M0KSJ. On this page, you’ll find a six minute mp3 audio file of our interview with the 2o12L team. We’ve also produced a video file, with the audio set to a montage of photos taken during our visit.

Thanks to the 2 Oscar 12 London team for making us feel so welcome. The station is operated by volunteers from the Cray Valley Radio Society, and they have put in a huge amount of work to make this happen and get all the pieces in place and on time. The technical setup, from antennas to logging software, plus the exhibition for those new to the hobby, is perfect, and something other clubs and special event stations should aspire to.

We’d suggest you make an effort to go to see 2o12L between now and the 9th of September. It’s worth it!