The ultimate covert amateur radio station?
I was in two minds about publishing this one to the blog but it is a 'thumping good yarn' and with due deference to anyone from Argentina "ITS NOTHING PERSONAL" - this entry appeared in PRC's June newsletter, QUA.
25 years ago next year (2nd April 1982 to be specific) Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands which despite being in the South Atlantic is a dependency of the UK. Radio communications were vital to island life, in 1982 the manually operated telephone system extended only a short distance from Port Stanley and hundreds of islanders relied on a government administered radio-telephone communications system.
Lighthouse keeper Reginald Silvey was a former British Antarctic Survey radio expert and enjoyed amateur radio as his hobby from a fairly remote cottage on the islands under the callsign VP8QE. Two days after the invasion Reg started to transmit information on the invading Argentine forces to the UK. Propagation was good at the time and Reg was able to transmit on 21MHz using up to 100 watts using an Atlas transceiver, mainly during evenings (UK time).
Argentine forces had banned radios but Reg had handed in a spare radio smuggled to him by a friend and had taken down his landmark antenna. Instead he adapted a simple substitute turning a steel cored washing line into a (fairly!) long wire across his garden and illegally acquired a notice signed by the Argentine military governor denying entry to Argentine soldiers and stating that his house had been cleared by the military police. From this point on Reg started a series of clandestine transmissions which would continue for the remainder of the occupation.
- Posted by Rob Luscombe on 27/07/2006.
- Rob Luscombe's site
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