Bracknell and ‘Twinned Town’ Leverkusen Radio Clubs make contact over the air
9th October 2024 Posted in Community News
Bracknell and Leverkusen in Germany celebrated 50 years or being ‘twinned towns’ this year which reminded the members of the Bracknell Amateur Radio Club that the Club once used to hold regular over-the-air chats with members of the Leverkusen Radio Club on the HF Bands.
Martin 2E0XBZ contacted Ben DO1BEN at the Leverkusen Club and together they coordinated our first QSO together for around 20 years. Conditions were far from ideal on 40m due to a solar flare, but with careful selection of the frequency and a great antenna setup at Martin’s QTH the two clubs were able to contact each other easily.
The DARC Leverkusen Club DL0IL has around 160 members and actively enters contests and takes part in field day events. It was good to catch-up with Ben and the members of the Leverkusen Club who were /P and to talk about the activities of our respective clubs. Martin 2E0XBZ established our call QSO and then handed over to Colin M0XCA, David M0XDF and Roy M0WTP who all had great overs with Ben. Ben had arranged for journalists from local Leverkusen papers to join them and listen to the contacts.
The conditions were quite variable, not helped by a lightning storm approaching Leverkusen that we could see on the waterfall screen. After about 30 mins of chatting it was agreed that this was something we should make a regular event, to enable us all to keep in touch. We could also arrange a Zoom session for a club meeting where we could chat as clubs between us. With the Lightning storm quickly approaching Leverkusen we brought the QSO to a close with plans to do it again soon.
Thank you to Martin for allowing us to make the call from his Shack and use his Yaesu FT-991a for this special event. Thanks also to all our members that listened in and helped with signal reports during the call. Finally thanks to Ben DO1BEN and all at DL0IL for our first contact between the clubs in a very long time