2020 Innovation Awards

2020 Innovation Awards

Sadly, due to the Coronavirus lockdown, the Cornish Radio Amateur Club have cancelled this year’s International Marconi Day (IMD). We, along with the Southport & District Amateur Radio Club, felt that was a shame so we checked to see whether all the ‘IMD’ special event callsigns had been issued for 2020 and found four of them had not been – a plan was hatched.

Marconi the innovator

Guglielmo Marconi
Marconi

Like many others, Marconi was experimenting with wireless communication in the late 19th Century. However, all was not plain sailing – he was experimenting with cutting edge technology and, as with today’s innovators, he was finding it hard to get the best support for his work in his homeland. Marconi had achieved wireless communication over a distance of 1.75 miles but the Italian government was not forthcoming with the assistance he needed. So their loss became the UK’s gain as he set up camp over here and went on to establish the first wireless communication across the Atlantic Ocean in 1901 from Poldhu, Cornwall – and the rest, as they say, is history.

Available Awards

On the 25th April the two clubs, based in Lancashire, will be running, three special event stations, GB5IMD, GB6IMD and GB6IMD, to celebrate the birth of Guglielmo Marconi on the same day in 1874.

Marconi used CW during his experiments, but for 2020 we wanted to celebrate later innovations that came out of Marconi’s original work; each of our stations will be dedicated to a more ‘modern’ innovative (for it’s day) mode of operation.

Furthermore, there are awards up for grabs for working each of our special event stations.

GB5IMD

GB5IMD will be operated by Craig from Bootle, near Liverpool, close to the location of Seaforth Radio (LV). This early Marconi station had the particular distinction being the first school for the training of sea-going wireless telegraphists, radio officers, including one Jack Phillips, senior radio operator on the RMS Titanic.

This station will be active on the HF bands using SSB and if you work it you can claim the “SSB Innovation Award“.

GB6IMD

GB6IMD will be operated by Iain from Leyland, a few miles from Chorley, the location of one of Marconi’s manufacturing sites.

This station will be operational on the 2m band using FM and if you work it you can claim the “FM Innovation Award“.

GB8IMD

GB8IMD will operated by Derek from Ormskirk, also a few miles from Chorley and the Marconi manufacturing site (ex-Plesseys) on Edge Lane in Liverpool.

This station will be operational on the HF bands using FT8 and if you work it you can claim the “FT8 Innovation Award“.

Claiming your awards

Apply for awards online. If you work more than one of our stations, apply for each award separately. We will aim to email out your award with 28 days of receiving your application.

In addition we will QSL all stations worked via eQSL – no printed QSL cards we’re afraid.