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International Lighthouse & Lightship Weekend 2008
The 3rd full weekend in August has been established as the International Lighthouse and Lightship weekend.
The event starts at 0001 UTC on Saturday and finishes at 2359 UTC on Sunday. The basic objective of the event
is to promote public awareness of lighthouses and lightships and their need for preservation and restoration,
to promote amateur radio and to foster International goodwill.
Check the ILLW Web page for more details.
 DXpedition announcement
DXpedition info
| Duration |
28 hours |
| Actual operation time |
24 hours (approx) |
| Contacts |
around 450, mainly on 20 & 40m |
| HF Radios |
Yaesu FT-897, Yaesu FT-ONE and Icom 7400 pro |
| HF Antennas |
10-15-20m Vertical, Cushcraft R8 , Butternut HF2V |
| VHF Antennas |
Diamond X-50 |
| Power source |
Mains power supplied from the lighthouse premises |
| Operators |
5B8AP (Andreas),
5B4MF (Spyros),
5B4AFQ (Manos) and
G0TSU (Demetrius)
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| QSL info |
Via home calls |
The complete story
There are officially eight lighthouses in Cyprus. Three of them are in the
area occupied by the Turkish troops. Of the five remaining lighthouses, the
Cape Kiti Lighthouse (ARLHS CYP-004)
is probably the easiest to access and activate. It's located near the village of Pervolia in the
Larnaca district, in a residential area so it's very easily accessible.
In the early stages of planning this activation we asked the Cyprus Ports
Authority to allow us to operate from the lighthouse premises and/or use
electric power from its premises. We were allowed to operate from outside
the lighthouse premises and use electric power.
I set off from my QTH in Nicosia at around 6:20AM on Saturday (16 Aug. 2008) morning.
Normally it would take about 45 minutes to get to the lighthouse, but with the pieces
of three long vertical HF antennas loaded on the roof rack of the car I had to be more
careful and drive slower.
I arrived at the lighthouse at around 7:30 and met with Demetrius (G0TSU).
We found a good spot and started with setting up the operating tent.
We then set up a small vertical antenna for 10-15-20m, stations for APRS and HF
and contacts begun at around 9:30.
There were strong winds blowing from the moment we got there on
Saturday until late at night, threatening to blow away the operating
tent and making operating more difficult.
5B4AFQ (Manos) joined the team early in the afternoon, helped us set up
his Cushcraft R8 antenna and operating continued. 5B4MF (Spyros) joined the team a
while later and the Butternut HF2V antenna for 40-80m was erected.
Myself and Spyros set up our tents behind the shack. We stayed at the location for
the night and continued operating for (almost) all night.
On Sunday the situation in terms of winds was better, but the, but the temperature
under shade was 2-4 degrees higher, rising to 32-34 degrees celsius. We stopped operating
at around noon and after disassembling the station we headed home.
We made around 450 contacts, mainly on 20 and 50m.
 Pictures from the activation Page 1 Page 2
 For more information about ham radio and lighthouses, check out the Web page of the Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society
To learn more about lighthouses in Cyprus check out the page of the Cyprus Ports Authority in
Greek (with pictures)
and English.
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