Posts Tagged ‘SOS Radio week’

SOS radio week 2014

sos-no-date-white-bg-200w1

For the last 3 years I’ve favoured begin part of one special event station. SOS radio Week. It is one of those events that seems to bring in a few QSO’s from all round the country to support one of the countries most easily forgotten about emergency service. Unless of course, like me, you live by the sea. The Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) has been running in some form or another since the year dot and its volunteers save lives at sea in all conditions. It is entirely funded by donations and the Workington club are once again putting on 3 stations and our sister club at Furness will be putting on a fourth to make up the ‘LBC’ or Lifeboat Cumbria set.

St bees is a very small village in West Cumbria and our lifeboat is thankfully not called out to often. My first close up encounter with them was a few years ago when they were called into action to rescue to young boys who had been jumping off the rocks and got into difficulty. During last years operation they were called out to rescue a fishing boat that had lost power and was drifting towards the head. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a £250k rib driven by a £350k submersible tractor down the slipway and into the water with such speed. There’s nothing particularly appealing about the Irish sea in January and I’d imagine that being under it is a tractor is even less appealing.

So this year, as with all years, we’ll be attempting to raise a bit of cash as well as awareness. the LBC group of stations have raised over £3000, approximately a third of the total raised by the whole country. This year we’ll add to that total and support our volunteers as best we can. Please keep an ear out for the stations between the 25th January to the 2nd February 2014 or have a look on the website SOSRadioWeek for all the other stations around the country. Band to be decided but this year we’ll have 2 stations, one for domestic and one for DX.

Gb1LBC – Silloth

GB2LBC – Workington

GB4LBC – St Bees

GB5LBC – Barrow

SOS Radio Week 2014 – 25th Jan to 2nd Feb

GB4LBC problems

Well it never rains….

Sometimes it snows

Other days it blows a gale

That’s the simple tale of gb4lbc this weekend. Our special event station barely made it off the ground. Or rather it nearly did because of the wind. Any wire antennas would have been blown down and would have hurt someone.

So its a shame we didn’t get much air time this weekend but maybe next time.

Better safe than sorry

GB4LBC cut short because of a rescue

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Whilst operating the GB4LBC special event station on Sunday we had a very urgent knock on the door. The station manager burst through and announced that the crew were launching for real. We stopped the session immediately and got well out the way.

The crew managed to get the boat into the water in what seemed to be seconds and before long they were out of sight and off to help a struggling fishing boat. It made the sos radio week just that little bit more realistic and hopefully it was just as one off.

Let’s hope that next weekend is not as busy for them but just as busy for us. Our 250 or do contacts, mainly on Sunday, were very much appreciated and thanks to everyone who took the time to answer our calls.

GB4LBC Special Event Station

It been a real pleasure to be operating the GB4LBC special event station for SOS radio week today. With just a long wire and 100w we had our own little pile up which lasted pretty much all day.

The station will be up and running again tomorrow on 40m and hopefully will be just as popular. The Workington and district club (MX0WRC) is operating 3 of the 4 stations in Cumbria

GB1LBC – Silloth
GB2LBC – Workington
GB4LBC – St Bees
GB5LBC – Barrow in Furness

GB5LBC is operated by our friends at Furness ARS and we managed to have a quick QSO during the pile up


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