With the start of a great summer and a very fitting venue, the Marconi Radio Club of Newfoundland Signal Hill Splinter Group  (1A Battery) made their way to the famous site to defend their 2011 title to the RAC/ARRL Field Day Trophy as  the top scoring  class A or B Field day group in the NL section... or perhaps this year we would follow the maxim of VO1EGH the revered leader of our esteemed comrads and past collaborators in BARK: Fun over Glory! And fun it was indeed.

We set up in Cabot Tower where we exchanged formal telegrams with our RAC NL Section Manager VO1VZ.  In the nearby parking lot we cranked out our own power and worked 5 stations for additional bonus points. The antenna was the same fly-rod special we used for the 110th anniversary of Marconi's first transatlantic experiment  with the Poldhu ARC just over 6 months ago and it worked very well. Unfortunately, our kite antenna did not fare so  well -- there wasn't a breath of wind on Signal Hill which was very unusual.

We had lots of visitors and fun handing out brochures, telling them all about our wonderful hobby. After lunch in Cabot Tower we had a radio class with Alicia, a  chemistry student who was well versed in the work of Tesla.  She took in a lecture on long wave experiments, including a demo reception of amateur signals on 184 kHz. Tourists from both sides of the Atlantic were fascinated by our operation and we are looking forward to FD2013 next summer. Good luck to our friends at the VO1BRK and VO1VON Field Day stations.

73
Joe VO1NA
Past RAC NL Section Manager