NARC hams at Caister Lifeboat managed to contact 179 radio amateurs in 32 countries on Saturday 25th April 2026 when they took part in the International Marconi Day (IMD) event to mark the inventor’s birthday.
Using the call GB0CMS and a mixture of Morse code, telephony (speech) and FT8 digital, contacts were made with other radio amateurs across the world.
Notable contacts were made with Marconi stations GB4IMD in Cornwall and GB0MBS in Dorset, plus other IMD stations in Pisa, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and Sardinia.
Other contacts included a station in Massachusetts, USA, and another in Victoria, Australia.
The Norfolk Amateur Radio Club (NARC) ran the all-day special event station at Caister Lifeboat to commemorate the village’s original Marconi Wireless Station, which was established at Caister in 1900. The station was in a house in the High Street known as Pretoria Villa and its original purpose was to communicate with ships in the North Sea and the Cross Sands lightship.
On Saturday, the closest to Guglielmo Marconi’s birthday, stations around the world are set up at sites with historical links to the inventor’s work. These include Poldhu in England; Cape Cod Massachusetts; Glace Bay, Nova Scotia and many others.
NARC’s Steve G0KYA, who organised the event, said: “We started with a contact with our good friend Ian VK3MO in Victoria, southern Australia – this is always the first contact we have and sets the tone for the event. This year Ian wasn’t particularly loud.
“Then we found out that the wrong antenna was connected – and the IC7300 had no antenna at all – just the coax! Anyway, we soon sorted that out and we were on the air.
“It was a good social event for the club and raised awareness of Caister’s connection with the inventor. Our thanks go to Caister Lifeboat again for letting us set up the station,” Steve said.