International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend 2018

The Manly Warringah Radio Society (VK2MB) has participated in the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend (https://illw.net/) since 2003. This year we hosted our friends Lindsay VK2AMV, Dave VK2JDS and Garry VK2FGAZ from the Amateur Radio Central West Group. As in previous years, we activated the historic Barrenjoey Lighthouse, 30 km north of Sydney (lighthouse code AU0046 https://illw.net/index.php/entrants-list-2018). We met in the beach carpark at 8:30 Saturday morning to distribute the gear for the trek up to the magnificent sandstone lighthouse and lighthouse keepers cottages. Also, as in previous years, it was extremely blustery from Saturday afternoon onwards and the 50 km/h winds were “strong enough to blow a dog off its chain” (as Dave was fond of telling our HF contacts).

The location has beautiful views at night.

This is the same view (looking south) as the subsequent photo the next morning at sunrise.

The antenna used was an Off-Center Fed Dipole (OCFD) in an inverted V arrangement. The SWR with the OCFD oriented about N-W (long leg) to S-E (short leg) and the feed-point on the north-side of the lighthouse balustrade, the SWR was about 1.6 at 3.6MHz, but was 1.5 or less (1.3 minimum) on 40m to 15m.

Operations were from the comfort of the Caretaker’s Cottage using the VK2MB callsign. We used an Icom IC7300 for our HF contacts and a Yaesu FT-7900 for 2m operation. Contacts were logged using the VKCL contest logging software (http://www.mnds.com.au/vkcl/). Here is a photo of Dave operating and Garry logging.

Five diehards operated from dusk.

All the way through the night.

To the morning.

As usual there crowds of visitors walking up the hill to admire the lighthouse and surrounding view, literally from sunrise to after sunset on both days. On the Sunday the National Park volunteers were providing guided tours of the historic lighthouse, but unfortunately by midday they were forced to cancel their tours due to the high winds at the top of the lighthouse. By early afternoon, we too decided to pack our gear up and reluctantly leave this magnificent location for another year.

All up we operated voice on 80m (the lowest frequency supported by our antenna), 40m, 20m and 2m. Over the weekend the HF band conditions were quite favourable, apart from 80m QRN due to lightning storms out in the Tasman sea on Saturday night.

In total over the weekend we achieved 103 contacts. Although the ILLW is not a contest per se, we endeavoured to work each station only once (as opposed to once per band or once per time limit etc) to keep the number of contacts down (ie making the logging easier, etc).

There were a total of 54 lighthouses around Australia were registered to participate of which we worked 26 Australian light houses - a great percentage worked! We also worked three NZ lighthouses, and a sprinkling of DX contacts “just for fun” eg Noumea, Tokyo and Russia.

This year we maintained our long standing tradition and also once again worked the unofficial/fun Todd River lighthouse in Alice Springs(!) that make an effort to participate every year. Horst (VK2HL) happened to be in Alice Springs on holidays at that time and sent us this photo of their operations (below). We later worked Horst from the caravan park.

On the Saturday and Sunday various members of the Society trekked up the hill to pay us a day visit and also to act as pack horses to carry up/down all the various items of hardware and provisions that we needed to support our operations. Thanks goes to them for their efforts. As an aside we did observe that VK2GHB (by some unknown means) had persuaded a random tourist to carry up his pack for him! He must be management material!

The Manly Warringah Radio Society members that attended/operated included:

Tim VK2BT Philip VK2APL Mike VK2UCT and XYL Di Geoff VK2TGO Bob VK2RL Roger VK2GHB Richard VK2NRA Nick VK2FS and Zara Mal VK2TMF Sean VK2THT

Amateur Radio Central West Group participants were: Lindsay VK2AMV Dave VK2JDS Garry VK2FGAZ

Our other amateur friends that visited us at Barrenjoey were: Dave VK2BDA Matt VK2BAI

All in all another great experience for us all! Beautiful location, great weather (no rain!), fantastic company, oh and some amatuer radio thrown in! What could be better than that??

Here is the final log.

Here is the final log:

**Call** **UTC Date** **UTC Time** **Frequency** **RST Sent** **RST Received** **Comments** </tr> </tbody> </table> Philip VK2APL and Tim VK2BT
VK2BV 20180818 003513 7 59 59 AU0022
VK3WI 20180818 005627 7 59 59 AU0036 TONY
VK5ARC 20180818 012017 7 36 59 AU0029 Barry
VK3WND 20180818 015143 7 59 59 AU0012 John,  Cape Schanck
VK3YSP 20180818 021241 7 59 59 Joe,  at Castlemaine
VK3FOWL 20180818 021329 7 59 59 Julie, Castlemaine
VK3ILH 20180818 022222 7 59+ 59+ AU0110 Darren, Port Albert
VK2JNG 20180818 025352 7 59 59+10 SOTA Gerard Mt Mckenzie at Tenterfield
VK8GM 20180818 030849 14 59 59 Greg at Todd River
VK2HX 20180818 033453 144 59 59 Chris
VK2HX 20180818 034013 7 59 59 Chris
VK2BAI 20180818 034758 144 59 59 Matt
VK3TCT 20180818 041629 7 59 59 John; Mildura
VK2MZZ 20180818 042747 7 58 59 Jeff
VK4ALE 20180818 044717 7 59 59
VK7LH 20180818 050148 7 59 59 AU0046?? Ross
VK3ATL 20180818 051843 7 59 59 AU0028 Ken
VK6CLL 20180818 055555 14 45 45 AU0008 Anthony 14.195
ZL6LH 20180818 060148 14 58 59 NZ0006 Piha lighthouse 14.206
VK2KTG 20180818 061146 14 59 59 Wilcannia Kevin 200 ft longwire Codan7727 PA plus Bitx 14.206
VK3BJA 20180818 061740 14 45 55 light  AU0056 Chris Wilsons Prom
JH1CDR 20180818 064328 14 45 56 Japan Ken 1kW 5el beam 14.173
VK2HL 20180818 /td> 064842 14 33 33 Alice Springs – Horst
VK2IO 20180818 065308 14 59 59 AU0041 Gerard
VK6AHR 20180818 065858 14 59 55 AU0073 Ray
VK4GHL 20180818 070457 14 55 57 AU0019 Jamie
VK6CNL 20180818 073940 14 55 41 AU0010
VK4BW 20180818 080428 7 59 59 AU0004 Dan – Burnett Heads
RA0QD 20180818 081445 14 59 59
ZL6LH 20180818 082054 3.5 59 59 David
ZL6CC 20180818 084007 3.5 59 59 NZ0001 – DON
VK3EG 20180818 084216 3.5 59 59 ROB – Point Hicks AU0027
VK3APC 20180818 084908 3.5 59 59 McCrae Light – AU0017 – ROY
ZL1XH 20180818 090229 3.5 59 59 Paul – North Shore Auckland
ZL1TM 20180818 090454 3.5 59 59 Andre home station
ZL2SEA 20180818 090627 3.5 59 59 Michael
VK3BD 20180818 090916 3.5 59 59 Victorian High Country – Brian – Mount Buller
VK3SPL 20180818 091149 3.5 59 57 ?? Inlet AU0032 – Stuart
VK3MDH 20180818 091302 3.5 59 55 Mark
VK2MCG 20180818 091733 3.5 57 57 Clive
VK4BX 20180818 091950 3.5 59 59+20 Chris – 20km North Gympie (South of Tiaro)
VK2AEJ/P 20180818 092146 3.5 47 58 AU0023
VK3MBW 20180818 101105 3.5 59 48 Geelong Barry
VK3NLK 20180818 101553 3.5 59 59 Melbourne Nik
VK2BOW/P 20180818 101849 3.5 59 59+ Braidwood James
VK3AES 20180818 102317 3.5 59 59 Mt Bulla Ken FT-857
VK5VGC 20180818 102755 3.5 59 59 Grant
VK4WJW 20180818 103259 3.5 59 59 Bill
VK3MNZ 20180818 103529 3.5 59 59+ Don
VK3CWF 20180818 103850 3.5 59 59+ Bill
VK3HMV 20180818 104110 3.5 59 59 Ballarat Andy
VK3HBR 20180818 104453 3.5 59 59 Phil – Newry near Gippsland
VK5PAS/M 20180818 105209 3.5 59 59 Mobile East Adelaide – Paul
ZL2LH 20180818 105423 3.5 24 59 NZ0017 – TOM
VK2MOP 20180818 105734 3.5 59+ 59+ Denelequin – John
VK3MVS 20180818 110224 3.5 59+ 59+ Paul – 20k North of Melbourne
VK3OHM 20180818 110643 3.5 59 59 Marc
VK2OP 20180818 111105 3.5 59+ 59+ Coffs Harbour – Peter
VK3MEG 20180818 112001 3.5 58 57 Steve – 40k W of Melbourne
VK3FMKE 20180818 112221 3.5 59 59 Keith – Eastern Melbourne Codan 6801S Marine
VK3LTL 20180818 112940 3.5 49 59 Ballarat – Andrew
VK3BJA 20180818 115145 3.5 59 59 John AU0056
VK5CJL 20180818 115754 3.5 59 59 AU0094 Andrew
VK3VVC 20180818 120015 3.5 59+10 59+20 Alan – Victoria Goldfields
VK5FMLO 20180818 120216 3.5 59 59 Michael
VK6BMM/P2 20180818 120546 3.5 59 59 Mel
VK3ECH 20180818 120655 3.5 59 59 ROB Echucha
VK5HOG 20180818 121035 3.5 59 59 Deane
VK5DDD 20180818 121350 3.5 59 59 Owen – Peterborough
VK3UCD 20180818 121818 3.5 59 59+10 David – Maryborourgh
VK3AXF 20180818 122201 3.5 59++ 59++ Ian – Mawhood
VK2XE 20180818 122352 3.5 59+ 59+ Greg
VK6CSW 20180818 122823 3.5 59 59 Clive – Nth Perth
VK2LT 20180818 123330 3.5 59 59 Les
VK4ITT 20180818 123459 3.5 59 59 Rob
VK5BWR 20180818 123841 3.5 41 47 AU0021
VK5LSB 20180818 124528 3.5 55 59
VK3FRCS 20180818 124807 3.5 59 59 Rob
VK5JN 20180818 125201 3.5 59+ 59 John
VK4AS 20180818 125518 3.5 59+ 59++ 40K S of Brisbane – Claus
VK5ZIM 20180818 125808 3.5 49 44
VK4GHL 20180818 130114 3.5 45 59 AU0019 – Roger
ZL1AZ 20180818 130337 3.5 51 57 Dennis
VK4FTCM 20180818 130549 3.5 59 59 Tony
VK3ZIP 20180818 130902 3.5 59 59+ Gippsland – Zorro
VK3BSG 20180818 131204 3.5 59+ 59+ Erik – 75K S of Bendigo
VK2SRC 20180818 131548 3.5 59 59 Reg – AU0006
VK4SYD 20180818 131819 3.5 59+ 59+ Rob – 20K S of Brisbane
VK2MTJ 20180818 211330 3.5 59 59 Terry
VK2EP 20180818 211836 3.5 59 59 AU0031 – Tony
VK2MTM 20180818 212440 3.5 59 59 Gordon – Grenfell
VK2TKB 20180818 213643 3.5 59 59 Kevin
VK2SON 20180818 214231 3.5 59 59 Lez – Orange
VK2NMO 20180818 215137 3.5 59 59 Chris
VK3IH 20180818 223150 7 55 53 cape liptrap au0037
VK2MTC 20180818 223744 3.5 59 59 greg cooma
VK4MQ 20180818 231005 7 59 59 Bruce
VK2FOMG 20180818 231926 144 59 59 Via VK2RAG repeater from top platform of lighthouse
VK2GHB 20180818 235907 7 59 59 Roger
VK2MZ 20180819 004955 7 59 59 7080
FK8HA 20180819 021408 14 59 57 Patrice – Noumea
VK3WND 20180819 025516 7 59 59 AU0012 Cape Schanck
VK3OLS 20180819 030152 7 58 58 AU0011 Tony, Cape Otway

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