Today, Sat 24 Oct, the UNESCO World Heritage Site Grimeton Radio Station in Sweden will start up and transmit a message on VLF.
Start up and tuning of the frankly huge Alexanderson alternator will start at 1430UTC. They will then transmit a message from SAQ on 17.2kHz CW at 1500UTC.
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you can watch it all live on YouTube:
I remember being impressed and intrigued by the 6 massive antenna masts that are visible from the motorway as a kid, so I really enjoyed watching the live cover of their Alexanderson Day transmission in July this year. All part of what made me follow up on finally getting an amateur licence.
I visited the site 2-3 years ago, and if you are interested in this sort of technology, it is a really interesting place to visit if you ever get the chance. The equipment is preserved in such excellent condition. It is about a 2.5 hour car journey from Copenhagen.
I had this wrong in my head - I thought the transmission was going to take place tomorrow (Sun 25th Oct). I had been to see Geoff 2E0BTR this morning to retrieve my upconvertor and some other bits to make a patch cable. I was to have a leisurely afternoon soldering and tinkering in preparation for RXing from a nice hilltop tomorrow. I had a quick check on the reflector just to see what’s new and saw this thread - I had an hour and a half to make it work! I chucked my 817, upconvertor, W3EDP, roach pole, laptop and assorted cables into the boot after quickly installing Fldigi for recording and decoding. I drove to a gateway in a nice RF quiet spot nearby and threw the wire up in the air in the hammering rain. The 817 was already tuned to BBC R4 198kHz as a sanity check and SAQ was already warming up as soon as I tuned to it. It was a fair to weak copy to me, but not being a morse man I couldnt really give a very well informed report. Fldigi managed to decode the message with about 50% accuracy. It went a lot better than deserved considering it’s my first bit of radio for a few years and the whole lot was thrown together in under an hour! This is my second ever copy of SAQ. It was even more fascinating being able to watch the live stream on Youtube via my phone, lagging a few seconds behind the decode on my laptop.
Thank you @MW7SRA for the reminder/correction just in the nick of time.
Sadly there will not be a transmission from SAQ this Festive Season.
This came in an email this morning:
As a result of the prevailing circumstances in our society, we unfortunately have to inform that the traditional Christmas Eve transmission with SAQ is cancelled.
We find it sad to have to make this decision, but see it as a necessary measure to protect everyone involved. While waiting for the next transmission with SAQ, there are several YouTube clips from previous transmissions that you can watch.
We truly regret this and hope for your understanding of the situation and continued support for the business. We hope that “our old lady” can soon be heard on the air again!
Grimeton World Heritage Foundation & Alexander GVV Friends Association
That is sad! I would have thought that they would be able to do it safely with only the key crew onsite, but since they are all older people, I can see why they don’t want to risk it.
