International Marconi Day April 27 2019 Special event stations W2LCW and W2GSB

Report by Howard, WB2UZE, VP, Long Island CW Club

What a fun event the Long Island CW Club (LICW) in partnership with the Great South Bay Amateur Radio Club (GSBARC) had. First let’s take a moment to review what this was all about.

Purpose: 
Guglielmo Marconi had a training school in 1901 at Babylon, Long island, NY and the house is still there today. 

Marconi training school in Babylon

Students would live there while taking radio operator courses. There was an antenna and equipped station in a shack that was on the property. 

KD2NFS in front of the Marconi house
Marconi shack, moved to a new location

That shack was moved in 1930 from Babylon to Rocky Point, Long Island, NY as a gift from the inventor Maj. Edwin Armstrong to the then head of RCA, David Sarnoff.  RCA had the largest transmitting station in the world at Rocky Point. That shack is presently at a the Rocky Point high school but the RCA location was unfortunately completely demolished in the 1970s. W2RC (Radio Central ARC) operates from that original shack on Marconi Day.

Marina where the operation took place


LICW and GSBARC operated in a beautiful marina, less than a 1/2 mile away from where Marconi’s Babylon school was located. In honor of the event, the local village made a wonderful and accurate replica of the shack.  This was the first time that this Marconi site was recognized in amateur radio.  Other sites in the US and worldwide were activated. See gx4crc.com for more information.   You can also visit the Village of Babylon’s Facebook page for their video and photos of the day.  
 
Background:
The clubs were very lucky there was no rain as the day before brought tremendous thunderstorms. They did have to put up with a constant 20 mph wind with 30mph gusts that made putting up antennas challenging. Unfortunately on two occasions the wind blew our food off the table including an amazing cake (made by Salli, K2RYD), which was a copy of a vintage Viking Valliant transmitter off our table.

Salli’s cake



The Village of Babylon placed the Marconi shack replica in an ideal spot and operators were allowed to set up an LICW CW station inside of it.  The other CW and digital stations ‘grew up’ nearby the shack and the SSB station run by GSBARC was about 500 feet away.  This wound up being a bit too close for 100 watt stations as there was some interference, even when using bandpass filters.  However, the club wanted to set up near to each other so the local community could easily see them in action in one spot.  Apart from the village, many Long Island chapters of the Sons of Italy were invited in honor of Marconi who was an Italian-American.

WB2JSY and local officials

Setup:
Event operators had the following stations with special thanks to each individual for making them available:

Walt, W2TE: CW in the shack: IC7600 with a jackite inverted vee
Mike, N2PPI:  CW-FT897D with jackite longwire and Digital FT857D to a Magloop
Peter, AA2VG: CW- IC7300 to Buddipole
Gary, KE2YK: CW  TS440AT to vertical

N2PPI and N2GSL



John, W2HCB brought down the GSBARC trailer which is fully outfitted with three  IC7100 radios and one was used on SSB by Salli, K2RYD.  Lou, NO2C also brought down his truck-mounted vertical. A total of three different antennas were tried on SSB to attempt to maximize output in poor 20 meter conditions.  One of these antennas was put up by Bob, W2OSR and Mike, KD2AMZ

Inside of the trailer

Operating:
The bands were poor with only 40 meters open until early afternoon, when 20 and 30 cracked open. 40 had a good CW run and so did the 20 meter digital station.  Due to very poor band conditions, the other CW stations had to hunt for contacts.  The operators did reach Europe a few times and all over the USA on CW and digital.  SSB did not find much activity on 20 meters. That was a bit disappointing but everyone tried their best.

AA2VG operating
KE2YK, W2DAB, KA2CAQ



The Village politicians and historians visited and were very pleased with the setup and mission.  There were some local residents and Sons of Italy folks that visited There was a good turn out from members of both clubs. Everyone who participated had a great time and there was a lot of camaraderie and smiles during the day.

Visitors to the shack

Special thanks:
There were a lot of people that made this day happen that need appreciation:
-Walt, W2TE for spearheading this entire event.  At 87 years old he has more energy than someone half his age.
-All the above mentioned ops who brought down rigs and were the backbone of this event from the beginning.
-Bob, KD2NFS who over the past 30 days visited 21 Sons of Italy chapters and made a 20 minute presentation about the event to each.
-Mike, KC2SYF who had duties at the simultaneous GSBARC Technical VE exam event yet was very involved with all phases of the event.
-Walt, KA2CAQ who volunteered to be the safety officer
-Bob, W2YW GSBARC treasurer, who took the initiative to discuss with legal counsel some insurance liability concerns
-John, W2HCB GSBARC president who supported this joint venture from the very beginning 
-Jim, W2KFV ARRL NLI Section Manager and Mel, KS2G NLI Information Coordinator for helping publicize and attending the event.

The club hopes to do this again next year.