Jan 11
17
SOS Radio Week from a club’s perspective
Members of MARS alongside the Barmouth lifeboat
Since 2007, the last week in January has become SOS Radio Week for many Radio Amateurs and Amateur Radio societies throughout the UK. The SOS Radio Week event, is a chance for Amateur Radio operators to raise funds for the Royal National Lifeboat Association (RNLI) through operating sponsored radio stations. Some participants donate their sponsorship money to one of the 235 lifeboat stations around our coast and others donate direct to the national fund.
The RNLI is a volunteer organisation, financed totally from donations, rescuing lives at sea in all weather conditions, day or night.
The SOS Radio Week event was the idea of David Hughes (M3LFC). With a little help from his father, Derek (G7LFC), they put together SOS Radio Week in 2007 to coincide with the RNLI’s newly founded SOS fundraising day in late January. Over the following 3 years SOS Radio Week has grown to be the major fundraising event it is today, raising over £3600 for the RNLI in 2010.
For the second year running in 2010 the Meirion Amateur Radio Society (MARS) set up an Amateur Radio station and gathered sponsorship to raise funds for their local lifeboat station in Barmouth on the Welsh coast. The final weekend of SOS Radio Week (it’s called a ‘week’ but the event lasts for nine days and covers two weekends – Ed) for MARS, is divided between the crew room at Barmouth lifeboat station on Saturday and the lounge of Barmouth Yacht club on Sunday.
MARS at the Barmouth Yacht Club during SOS Radio Week 2010
Early Saturday morning, MARS members gathered at the lifeboat station to assemble the antennas and equipment. The SRC X130 end fed long wire HF antenna was the excellent and the VHF antenna was a trusty Watson W-300. Radio equipment at the lifeboat station was a Trio TS 430 for HF and a Yaesu FT897 for VHF.
Operating under the special event callsign GB6BLB MARS made many contacts during Saturday, mainly on 80 meters for inter-G and 20 meters for continental, mostly Europe, with a few from North America, all on SSB. 2 meters bought local contacts via the GB3DW repeater and some simplex FM contacts as far away as Cornwall.
On Saturday evening, the setup at the lifeboat station was taken down and members of MARS moved to the Barmouth Yacht club to continue overnight and through until 16.00 in the afternoon on Sunday. The yacht club station had been set up and running from Saturday lunchtime, operating the clubs callsign GC4LZP.
The equipment in use at the yacht club for HF was a Yaesu FT897 (for PSK31), a restored Yaesu FT101ZDFM mk3, a Yaesu FT897 and a Kenwood TS2000 operating SSB. For VHF/UHF there was a Yaesu FT7800 with a Simoco FM1000 for 4 meters.
The antennas at the yacht club were again an SRC X130 for HF and an SRC X80 for psk31; 2 meters and 70cms were taken care of with a Diamond X300 and 4 meters went through a Sirio CX4-71.
Alongside all this MARS had computers on hand with echolink, CQ100 and a webcam operating throughout the event, making it a truly multi mode operation.
Over 300 contacts were made by members of Meirion ARS over the weekend, much of the PSK31 operating was on 20 meters with QSO’s to all continents, 80 meters was open throughout the weekend and often resulted in pileups and long stints at the microphone for the operators. Even 4 meters came alive for a short while with contacts into South Wales and England.
The weekend raised £520 for the Barmouth lifeboat fund and, when added to 2009’s total of £407, Meirion ARS are getting close to the £1000 mark in just 2 years. For more information visit www.meirion-ars.co.uk .
