Saturday the 25th of April saw the Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society celebrating International Marconi Day 2015 at their preferred operating venue, Sandford Mill.
Several members of the Society’s team set up a station on 40 metres in the historic 2MT hut, operating on 7.120MHz solidly throughout the day, with some pretty big pileups for much of the activation.
Several other stations were on-air for International Marconi Day, and with certificates on offer for working multiple IMD stations, the Society’s operating team was pretty busy. To cope with the pile-up, the Society made use of an operator/logger combination, at times working ‘by the numbers’ to give everyone a fair chance of working GX0MWT.
Hard at work too, were other Society members, including David G3SVI and Myra M0MYR, talking to the museum’s many visitors and passing out some of the new CARS promotional leaflets.
With the museum’s doors open to the public, lots of visitors descended to take part in various activities, and Colin G0TRM laid on his excellent Morse demonstration, which is always a favourite with youngsters.
Those interested in seeing (and hearing) Morse in action, could visit the small team of operators on the top floor working away on the bands for those keen to work Marconi stations CW.
CARS Vice-President John Bowen G8DET was kept busy throughout the day, giving a total of three talks on the subject of the RMS Lusitania, and how, just as with Titanic, lives were saved through the medium of Mr Marconi’s Wireless.
Nice to see Martin M1MRB, presenter of the popular amateur radio podcast ICQ Podcast, plus two of his colleagues, out for the day to see CARS in action – nice to meet you all. Pete M0PSX is a podcaster too, and it was nice to compare voice recorders!
Also good to see some of the newer entrants to amateur radio: Brian M6UHN, Chris M6KDG, Gordon M6IRX and Dean (who’s training with SEARS for his Foundation). All four are members of Essex Ham, and came down to see what happens at Sandford Mill. Rather than joining the Society’s operating team in the HF shack, the three M6s chose to stay outside in the sun, set up a QRP 2m station (using their own callsigns), and work the local repeater GB3DA, as well as trying some EchoLink using the Danbury node MB7IDA.
Well done to James 2E1GUA for coordinating the event for CARS. Great to see so many people turn up to operate for IMD, meet up with fellow radio enthusiasts, and to support amateur radio from the birthplace of radio.
Peter,
Very nice report and selection of photos – I particularly like Charlie’s photo of me!
Putting on anything like Sandford Mill has to be a Team Affair for it to work.
Thanks for your involvement and all the Essex Ham and CARS Members as well as the many visitors.
The weather was kind to us on that day.
John G8DET Vice President of CARS.
Thanks Pete for the nice werd’s for IMD more then i can say for CARS.
Sounds like an excellent day had by all ,,and great report and pictures too xx