Amateur radio operators Merimbula’s Kevin Mulcahy and Grant LaDelle of Sydney will be live and global as they celebrate International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend at Green Cape this weekend.
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The event is designed to foster public appreciation of lighthouses and amateur radio and will be broadcast from 440 lighthouses from over 50 countries.
Mr Mulcahy is the global organiser for the event after taking over from Scottish founder, the late Mike Dalrymple in 2005.
His first broadcast was Green Cape in 1998 and he was shocked to discover there were only four Australian lighthouses involved.
“It’s a beaut spot to broadcast from because you’ve got water all around you and that lighthouse has a real charisma about it,” he said.
“But it was only the second time the event had taken place and there were only four stations from Australia.”
He immediately began a campaign to get more stations involved.
This year 66 Australian operators will take part, setting up stations from the East Coast at Gabo Island and Wilson’s Promontory to Cape Leeuwin in the west where Indian and Southern Oceans meet.
“It’s taken a fair bit of work, because early in the piece the people who owned the lighthouses were very concerned about the ecology of the environment but gradually they came around and they are now helping us to promote it.”
“The whole thing’s getting quite big now, there are 440 stations across the world this year.”
Listeners can tune in to 7 megahertz (7075) or 14 megahertz to catch some of the airway action.