The Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre set up a station at its traditional Green Point Lighthouse venue for the 2021 ILLW event, from Saturday 19th to Sunday 20th August 2021.
Owing to the Coronavirus safety restrictions, our club wasn't able to use the actual Lighthouse or associated buildings this year as we usually do. No mains power plus the temporary loss of access to the large room and lighthouse tower we usually enjoy there made setting up a multi-rig, multi-band, multi-antenna HF station too cumbersome to do this year. However, none of these limitations prevented Chris ZS1CDG from setting up a field station at the venue to make contacts through the QO-100 geostationary satellite. Strict Covid precautions were maintained throughout the event.
A resounding success! The event was attended throughout the weekend by numerous radio amateurs as well as members of the public, who were curious to see radio hams making many international contacts via the satellite. As ever, it was a great opportunity to promote both our club and the hobby to many visitors. It was also a lot of fun!
Among those present were Chris ZS1CDG, John ZS1EQ, Graeme ZS1GAK, Fred ZS1FZ, Stan ZS1HC, ZS1KU, Lem ZS1LEM, Celso ZS1MYG, Peter ZS1PC, James ZS1RBT, Paul ZS1S, Rob ZS1SA (CTARC chairman) & Anne, Tony ZS1TK, Phil ZS1WW, Bryce ZU1BM, Kiara ZU1ISS and ZU1KAT. We were also delighted to see Syd ZS5AYC & Adele ZS5APT who had traveled down here from Natal.
A video of the CTARC ILLW event is [here].
Hats off to Chris ZS1CDG for setting up the event and thanks to all those who attended and operated the station. We look forward to the ILLW again next year where (oh, how we hope!) we will be able to run a full HF station again at Green Point Lighthouse.
A more comprehensive report and photos are in the September 2021 edition of Ragchew, the CTARC's newsletter .