Beaconnect – registration details

BEACONNECT REGISTRATION CLOSED ON 30 JUNE 2023

We thank everyone who took the time to participate in Beaconnect, and all the other RSGB Coronation special events

Special Event Licenses

Ofcom have kindly granted a SSES for use with this event, as a block of call signs GB23BAA to GB23BZZ.  Each beacon site will be allocated a call sign from this block.

For licensing purposes the activator (who might be supervising a club or group activation) must be a Full licensee, who is an RSGB member, and is on the RSGB Contest Club membership list. This does not mean you have to take part in future contests, for this event it’s simply a convenient licensing mechanism, as the RSGB is not able to hold call signs in its own name.

Foundation and Intermediate licensees may operate one of these call signs under the supervision of a Full licensee, as usual.

For Foundation and Intermediate Licensees only

Operation using one of the SSES call signs is preferred, but if you cannot operate one of the SSES call signs under supervision, for whatever reason, and wish to take part in this event you can.

Ofcom have agreed that you can simply add a suffix to your own call sign in the format /Bxxx where xxx is a serial number that will be allocated to you on registration.  You will not need to be on the RSGB Contest Club membership list to use the suffix. Don’t forget this will not work with FT8/4.

Registering

Volunteers from the contest community have kindly agreed to take the bookings, and the GB23B** calls will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.

Availability

Please check which call signs are available on the Google Spreadsheet where these are listed. This has 26 pages, GB23BAx to  GB23BZx which you can navigate by clicking on the tabs at the bottom of the page.

There are 670 possible calls (after filtering out some inappropriate ones!) – all starting with GB23B – so hopefully you can find one that represents the beacon site that you intend to activate.

If you or your team intend to activate more than one beacon, please apply for a call sign for each beacon.

If the beacon that you had planned to activate has already been booked by other activators, please discuss this with us. We would rather have additional beacons activated, than multiple activations of the same beacon.

Notice of Variation

The SSES call signs have been issued by Ofcom as a Notice of Variation to the RSGB Contest Club call sign G6XX. If you activate one or more of the GB23B calls, this will be as a club member of the Contest Club under Licence Clause 3(5)(a).

How to apply

We will need some information from you which will not be published, and other details that we will publish for the benefit of other beacon activators, and for those who will wish to make QSOs with you who are not on beacon sites.

To complete your application, you will need the information below to hand.

Information required that will not be published:
  • Your call sign
  • Your name
  • The detailed location of the beacon site either as Lat/Long coordinates or Ordnance Survey NGR (you can obtain Lat/Long to five decimal places by right clicking on the location in Google Maps or Microsoft Bing Maps and no doubt other services)
Information required that will be published:
  • Beacon name
  • Maidenhead Locator (will be published as four characters only)
  • County and Country (ie South Yorkshire, England)
  • RSGB Region
  • Team name (optional – likely to be radio club name)
  • Date range for activation (1 May to 30 June maximum)
  • Bands/Modes to be activated (your initial ideas are adequate for this, for example 40m CW or 2m SSB)
If you are a full licensee please provide:
  • Beaconnect call first preference (GB23B**)
  • Beaconnect call second preference (GB23B**)
  • Beaconnect call third preference (GB23B**)

Foundation and Intermediate Licensee activators will be allocated a suffix in the sequence /B*** rather than a Beaconnect call if they wish to operate unsupervised by a Full licensee.

Tap or click the button below to get started on your registration

The application process includes some manual configuration and consequently receipt of your confirmation may be subject to a short delay.

The lists of registered beacon call signs is available online, including a 4 character Maidenhead locator – but for safeguarding and GDPR purposes not including the beacon name, activator name, home call sign nor the precise beacon location.

For Foundation and Intermediate licensees who are using their own call signs only the /Bxxx suffix will be shown.

On registration you will be invited to join the Beaconnect discussion group which can be used for coordinating beacon activation with other activators.

After the event

For the Beaconnect calls only, RSGB do not need to have a copy of your log. Club Log, LoTW and/or eQSL confirmations are your responsibility. The RSGB QSL bureau will not send or receive your paper QSL cards for this event, please do not send any cards to them. Any paper QSLs that you wish to send must be by direct mail and are your responsibility.

Please let us have a list of the dates of your activations, as Ofcom have asked us to provide this for each Beaconnect call after the event.