Many thank to Bob (K4RLC) who shares the following guest post:
Marconi Revived – Activating the Marconi sites in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia
by Bob K4RLC VE1/K4RLC
Alanna K4AAC and I just returned from a wonderful trip to Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada. It was a bucket list trip. One goal was to visit and activate the two Marconi sites in Glace Bay. Then, we would drive the Cabot Trail around the Island, hiking and activating various provincial parks and lighthouses. Cape Breton Island is incredibly beautiful, with mountains coming right to the sea. The seafood is great (freshly caught lobster) and the people are relaxed and friendly.
The Marconi National Historic Site at Table Head Glace Bay is on the site of Marconi’s transmitting station from 1902 where the first successful trans Atlantic contact was made with the Poldhu Cornwall England station. Now, there is a small, but very Informative Parks Canada Museum, which also happens to have an active amateur radio station on site. I had arranged by e-mail with members of the local Sydney (NS) Amateur Radio Society to meet the control operators there.
The station is only open two months of the year–July & August–and the control Ops are there only for a short time each day. We met Jim and Michael VE1CYO, a former CW operator in the British Royal Navy. Not only did Mike know the history of the Marconi site, he was very gracious in letting me operate the station. They have a Kenwood TS-590, a Mosley 3 element beam, as well as a 40 through 10 dipole.
It was one of those days with very bad solar conditions. Mike was doubtful I would make any contacts. However, I had pre spotted on the POTA site, as the station is also a POTA site: CA-4842. The Kenwood and beam worked well on 20 meters CW.
The first contact was Gary, AE4GS, a friend in Tennessee. Then, Rich N4EX back in Raleigh. As Mike did not know, I explained to him about the POTA system, and how there were many hams who would want to work the Marconi station VE1VAS, named after the commercial Marconi call sign of VAS (standing for “Voice of the Atlantic Seaboard”).
After working all the stations we could hear, and talking with Mike about his Royal Navy history, he left for the afternoon. As my KX2 was in the shop, Rhett KB4HG had graciously lent me his for our trip. I went out to the original Marconi antenna field by the ocean and set up the KX2.
It was a lovely afternoon, clear skies, nice breeze and being on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Conditions were not great for QRP, but there were several families visiting with young children who were very curious about ham radio, Morse code, and Marconi. Alanna and I were happy to talk with the families and children. After showing the KX2 to a very inquisitive 6 year old boy from Montreal, he told his Mom: “ I want one!”
After driving the island via the Cabot Trail loop for several days, we spent the last morning at the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck, also a POTA site (Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site). Bell was an incredible inventor, not just of the telephone, but of scientific and medical experiments. He developed a device to send voice over a beam of light. And he predicted cell phones!
For the last afternoon, we returned to Glace Bay and wanted to find the old Marconi House. We followed Mike’s directions to a place appropriately called Marconi Tower Road.
And a gravel driveway where several power lines made an abrupt turn up a long driveway.
This was indeed the original Marconi House from 1905, which is also a Canadian National Historic Site but is privately owned. A old sign that said “Guard dog – Do Not Enter” was still there and we had been told the current owner did not like visitors.
But it also was a POTA site (CA-5830) that had NEVER been activated. So, I was standing at the end of the driveway with the Elecraft KH1 when a car came down from the house. I was very apprehensive. But when it stopped, the driver rolled down the window, looked at me curiously and said “hello”.
I said “hello” back and explained that I was a ham radio operator and hoped he didn’t mind if I stood on his driveway and operated. He smiled and said he could tell I was a ham. Then he said he had to run an errand but he would be back in 5 minutes and I could follow him back to the house!
This was Barry, grandson of Russell who bought the house from Marconi in 1946. This turned into a wonderful visit with Barry. He initially took us on the outside of the house but said we couldn’t come in. We said that was fine.
Then he took us for a long hike back in the woods to the original Marconi transmitter building. Unfortunately, it had been mostly consumed in a terrible fire, so hot that all the insulators, ceramics and transformers had burst. Barry was extremely helpful, digging through the rubble to find original insulator pieces for me.
Barry and I hit it off really well. As we walked back to the house, he invited us inside. Alanna stayed in the kitchen and talked with his very nice wife, Brenda, a First grade school teacher. Barry took me down in the basement and showed me Marconi’s workshop.
There were a lot of old Volt & Amp meters from the early 1900’s. Barry had dug through the debris of the VAS Transmitter station fire to find me old insulators, shattered by the fire. In the basement, he went to a dark section in the back, under the stairs and found a unbroken ceramic insulator that he gave to me! We went in the various rooms where Marconi had stayed. It was a dream come true.
I only made a few CW contacts with the handheld KH1 in the front yard, as Barry and I spent a few hours talking about Marconi and Barry’s family, including his grandparents, who were buried in the back, near one of the massive antenna mounts.
Just wonder what Marconi would have thought about the KH1 with a 4 foot whip antenna, given that he had four 200 foot antenna towers with an Inverted pyramid configuration of wires, 2200 feet in diameter, spread across 80 acres of land. Wow! I wished that antenna was there to load up with the KH1.
I was running about 3 watts on 20 CW while Marconi’s station had coal-fired boilers driving steam engines pushing generators in series producing 15,000 volts that powered the Spark transmitters on 8000 Meters. There were train tracks into the station to deliver the coal to this station at Marconi Towers. It maintained in service until 1945 giving long range communications to ships in the North Atlantic and marine weather information using the call sign VAS.
It was a bucket list dream come true. I felt honored to both meet Mike, the former Royal Navy CW Op, and Barry and his family who graciously let Alanna and me come into their private house (and hear their teenage daughter Vivian play the classical piano in one of Marconi’s former sitting rooms). I hope the photos do justice.
73 de K4RLC Bob & VE1/K4RLC
Thanks to Mike VE1CYO for many of the details on VAS;
Black & White photos courtesy of the Cape Breton Wireless Heritage Society www.cbwireless.ednet.ns.ca/cbwirelessp3.html for photos of the original Glace Bay sites and detailed information about the Marconi sites in Nova Scotia
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