Reports from entrants in the 2025 ILLW event.

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Thanks once again to all the entrants for joining in the fun of the Lighthouse Weekend and for making it another successful year.

 Web links to Youtube, web sites etc.

Cape Otway Lightststion web page:- Click here

From South Africa, download report from ZS6RSW

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 Dear amateur friends. As the TC7TR team, we're participating in this event for the

second time this year, and we'd like to say that we enjoyed it even more than the

previous year. We had a very full and enjoyable weekend with our guests from various

provinces in Türkiye. During this event, we not only exchanged QSOs with stations

that could hear us on the air, but also ate, drank, and had fun with our friends. We'd

like to thank all our friends who joined us, both on the ground and in the air, and we

eagerly await the day we meet again.

 A report from Shoreham Lighthouse, callsign GB2ISL, reference number UK0023.

Due to construction works in the Shoreham Lighthouse car park, I was not able to put up my usual inverted-V 40 metre dipole in its normal place.  There was nowhere else that I could site it where visiting members of the public couldn’t have stood a bit too close to its ends!

So plan B was to use various whip antennas on top of my car instead.  Despite the HF ones being relatively inefficient – and the 40m version especially so – I still managed to make a respectable number of contacts in the circumstances.

I was active from 0900 to 1900 GMT on the Saturday only.

Total QSOs: 37.  All were voice, using SSB on HF and FM on 2 meters.

QSOs by band: 17 on 2 meters simplex, one on 2 meters via a French repeater at Dieppe, three on 10 meters, one on 17 meters, six on 20 meters, and nine on 40 meters.Total lighthouses: 15

Lighthouse countries worked in order:  Netherlands, Belgium, England, Northern Ireland, Uruguay, Germany, Scotland, Denmark, France.

Furthest DX: Cabo Polonio in Uruguay (CX1T – ref UY0001) on 10 meters.  Distance 6,728 miles. 

Closest contact: Beachy Head Lighthouse (GB1BHL – ref UK0104) on 2 meters.  Distance 22.5 miles.

The two highlights were the number of local contacts on 2 meters - especially as conditions were mostly flat.  I had not pre-arranged anything, other than mentioning on Facebook that I would call periodically.  Some people will tell you that 2 meters FM is dead but it certainly wasn’t in my case!

The other highlight was the contact with the Uruguayan lighthouse.  He was 55 to me but he gave me a 59 report.  I was using a long telescopic antenna set to 2.5 meters, so a full quarter-wave on top of my car.  If I had been able to put up my 40 meter dipole, then it is very likely that I wouldn’t  have ventured on to 10 meters at all.

Thanks to everybody who worked me.  Special thanks to Martin M1MRB (from the ICQ Podcast) and Joe M3HXF (a local amateur) and his lady who all came to visit in person.

73 Ed M0MNG / GB2ISL.

 From Juliene at Port Logan, a very old lighthouse.

SP1KYB/LH during ILLW 2025.

Our entire team from the Kołobrzeg Lighthouse (PL-0021) participated in this year's ILLW thanks to our collaboration with the Kołobrzeg Institute of Culture and Promotion.

On Saturday morning (August 16th), we set up the tents, connected the equipment, and hung the antennas: the Hexbeam was placed above the tent, and the 41-meter LongWire was mounted on the lighthouse tower.
We used the following TRXs: ICOM IC-746 and YAESU FT-450D, with a spare XIEGU G90. 
The SP1KYB/LH team: Andy SQ1GU, Karol SP1PT, Tom SP1ZX, Zibi SP1F, and Józef SP1LJQ.
In the morning, we started working on SSB and CW, followed by FT8. We had historic military equipment on display for visitors to our stand: an R105dM radio station, an RBM radio station, and an MB-66 field telephone. Telegraph keys and Morse code boards were on display for the youngest visitors.
This year, we broke the record from previous years and "caught" 37 lighthouses from around the world.
In total, we made 220 qso. It would probably have been a bit longer, but the level of interference generated by devices in nearby fry shops effectively hampered daytime work. At night, when the devices were turned off, work could be carried out at longer distances. At 3:00 a.m., the furthest connection was made, with a station in Colombia, approximately 9,100 km from Kołobrzeg. We promise to return to the same place next year; we've even submitted our 2026 application form to the ILLW!

 Cape Otway Lighthouse Victoria, Australiare-activated, for ILLW, best yet…. Aug. 16-17^th 2025

So, over the two days at Cape Otway, what happened?

We made about 100 contacts, we contacted 10 overseas lighthouses, mainly in Europe, and 8 Australian lighthouses. We even worked into Ireland strength 9, on 20m, only 100 watts. We found also that you could work 20m throughout the day but to different regions. Conditions were very good, and certainly the best lighthouse weekend. Spoke to about 30 groups of the public that came through the Telegraph Station.

I would like to thank the staff at Cape Otway, it made it a real pleasure. Great place to visit to see the lighthouse, and the coffee was very good in the café.

Cape Otway light was constructed in 1848, elevation 91m, tower 20m. There is a complete heritage precinct, keepers’ cottages, workshops, and a WW2 radar bunker. Also, on-site history talks by Janice, lighthouse tours, plus numerous coastal walks.  www.lightstation.com

Regards Glenn Alford VK3ILH/VK3CAM

To download the full report (Word Doc) and photos: click here

Report for ILLW 2025 from ZM2MF - 16-8-2025

The plan was to activate the historic BEAN ROCK Lighthouse which is located in the Waitemata (Auckland) Harbour, New Zealand.

The nearest land based location to the lighthouse was at the Bastion point viewpoint – itself an historic/memorial site.

Bean Rock lighthouse was built in 1871 and is a very well known marititme “landmark” to the Auckland boating community and is an historical building.

For some background checkout this weblink: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean_Rock_Lighthouse

I operated from my campervan parked in the public carpark at Bastion Point overlooking the harbour and approximately 1.5km from the lighthouse.

Rig set up was an IC7000 on 40m and IC706MKIIG on 20m and the mobile whip on the rear of the campervan.

Saturday 16^th was a very wet day in this part of New Zealand but a positive was that it kept the crowds away from the viewpoint so it was easy to get a vacant parking spot!

Operation was between 13:00 and 17:30 NZT and a total of 38 QSOs was made. I left as the rain became too intense! 

NZ lighthouses worked:

ZL1AB NZ0006 ZL3NLA NZ0099 ZL2LH NZ0017 ZL2AB NZ0003  ZL4RCC NZ0004 ZL4DE NZ0004

Missed ZL1FND (who was rained off on Saturday but I worked them from my home QTH on Sunday) ZL1LIG and ZL6CC

VK lighthouses worked:

VK6CLL AU0008 VK3WRC AU0036 VK4CQR AU0060 VK5BWR AU0021 VK3ILH AU0011 VK2UGB AU0033

Missed VK4BAR AU0014 on Saturday but worked them from my home QTH on Sunday!

Had a lot of fun, which is what the hobby is all about!

73 de Maurice ZM2MF op ZL2MF 

 From Israel at Telaviv lighthouse,

, 

 We (N7G) once again had a great time contributing to the ILLW! We arrived at Gray's Harbor Lighthouse (US-0062) and struggled to set up our tent in 19-20MPH winds and driving rain. We got our 2 stations set up and were able to start at 0000 UTC on Saturday. We operated, intermittently, 24 hours of the 48 hour event. We were light on QSO's but learned a lot about our radios. We had 50 FT8, 7 SSB and 3 CW QSO's of which one was with another lighthouse. This was our fourth year participating in this great event and a fun time was had by our team! We look forward to participating next year!

Randy Walker  K7NOJ (N7G)