GB5BBW Special Event Station

 On the 25th October 1926, as Britain was locked in an unseasonably severe, early-winter cold snap, and the South West struggled with biting frosts and a harsh, cutting Northeasterly wind, an important moment in radio history was taking place. The Marconi Company had been carrying out strict operational station tests prior to the handover to the General Post Office at midnight on the 25th October. For the Marconi engineers, this freezing, dry Arctic air mass was an absolute blessing. The stable ionospheric conditions and lack of atmospheric stormy static (which had plagued earlier longwave tests over the summer) meant the very first 32-meter shortwave "beam" signals from Drummondville to Somerset arrived with pristine clarity.

The original aerials at the beam wireless station

One hundred years later, the Taunton & District Amateur Radio Club (TDARC), in collaboration with the Club Radio Amateur de Drummondville, attempted to 'recreate' that connection between the two original sites. Whilst the Canadians benefitted from operating from the comfort of the original transmitter building in Drummondville, members of the Taunton radio club found themselves sat in a field next to the original receiving station building (now a private residence)! We were very lucky to have received the support of the owners of the house to set up in the paddock and they took an active interest in the events leading up to the day.

Much as the engineers back in 1926 had done, TDARC had started preparations many months earlier, with Ian (G4ELW) managing the project throughout. David (G7BEH) secured the special event callsign GB5BBW (Bridgwater Beam Wireless) and Ian turned his attention to propagation forecasting. On Saturday 24th October, a number of Club members arrived on site, in strong winds and rain to build the 3 element HF yagi aerial, supplied by Andy (G1BED), that we intended to use the following day.

Setting up the mast for the Off Centre Fed Dipole aerial

On the Sunday morning,  the rain had (more-or-less) stopped but the winds remained and the decision was taken not to use it for fear of it toppling over in the strong gusts. Instead, an Off Centre Fed Dipole was erected and hoisted up a 10m mast, on top of which was a 2m whip. A QO-100 portable station was also set up, supplied by Richard (M5EIS). With all that complete the plan was to operate at VHF for the morning, before switching over to HF around 1.00pm to start test transmissions to Canada. Meanwhile, Richard and David operated on QO-100 throughout the day, with contacts made from Central Brazil to India via the satellite.

M5EIS (foreground) and G7BEH (behind) setting up and operating on QO-100

This particular weekend just happened to be the CQWW contest, which meant that many bands were just too busy to use for our purposes... fortunately, 17m had been identified as a good prospect for attempting the transatlantic contact. Test CW transmissions were made initially at 5W on 18MHz and watching the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) for reports - that power was soon upped to around 75W! Increasing the power output did the trick and we were soon seeing RBN reports from W1NT-6 which indicated that propagation was heading in the right direction. Around 1.45pm, with us using 100W CW, the Canadians responded to our call!  Originally we had planned to try the contact at 2.00pm, but this was close enough and we passed pre-agreed messages between Drummondville and Huntsworth. 

VE2OWL sending GB5BBW the pre-arranged CW message

This success was only achieved through the efforts of teams on both sides of the Atlantic and 100 years to the day, we were able to recreate that contact between the stations. Although many people helped us to setup and run this station, special thanks must go to the site owner, Peter, who supported the project from the start; the Canadian team, lead by Normand Juneau, VE2DVG, and Roland Bélanger, VA2YWW, (and also Stéphane Burgoyne, VE2OWL, who received our text and sent the CW response from Drummondville). From within TDARC, Andy Carter, G1BED, lent us his generator, mast and aerial; Richard Large, M5EIS, who lent us his QO-100 set up, as well as Dee Kay-Newman, M0AOD, and Mike Coles who did loads of running around behind the scenes!

G4ELW on the mic, operating GB5BBW