Operating as GB8KOA – January 2022

Over 4 days (28th January until 31st January 2022), members of the Peterborough and District Amateur Radio Club operated under the special event callsign GB8KOA. I was lucky to be offered the opportunity to use this callsign.

This special event callsign was used to commemorate the burial of Katherine of Aragon at Peterborough Cathedral on the 29th January 1536. The cathedral carried out several events over the weekend. More details about those here – Katherine of Aragon Festival

Katherine of Aragon’s tomb in Peterborough Cathedral

The number 8 in the callsign is for King Henry the VIII who was married to Katherine. KOA is for Katherine Of Aragon.

I operated using the GB8KOA callsign on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the event. I was using FT8 and FT4 on the following HF bands – 20M, 17M & 15M. I also used the FT8 mode on the 2M band. I used the Yaesu FT-991A with the WSJT-X software.

In total, I made about 160 QSOs with stations all over the world. Once I know how many QSOs were made in total including the other station, I will update the statistics on this page.

I worked many different countries including :-

  • Russia
  • Ukraine
  • Italy
  • France
  • USA
  • Romania

One new country for me was Suriname. I worked the station PZ5RA with FT4 on the 17m band.

This was the first special event I’ve taken part in. Due to COVID, we operated from home. I am hoping to take part in another special event station in the future.

Did you work this special event station? Please let me know in the comments.

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