On November 10, 1975, the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a storm while en route from Superior, WI to Detroit, MI. 29 crew members were lost when the vessel went down in 530 feet of water 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Bay, near the twin cities of Sault Ste. Marie, MI, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.
In November of each year, The Livonia Amateur Radio Club operates Special Event Station W8F, commemorating the sinking of the “Mighty Fitz”. This year’s event will take place on Saturday, November 9, 2024, at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum at Belle Isle State Park in Detroit. Equipment and antenna setup begin around 10:00 AM and on-air by 11:00 AM (or sooner), and end around 3:30 PM. We encourage club members to come to the Dossin museum and take part in operating the special event station on the air.
As of last year’s event, we have changed our confirmation process, moving away from SASE/postal to a completely digital model.
Please do NOT send us a certificate or confirmation request via email or postal.
If you have contacted W8F are interested in receiving a QSL certificate, submit your email below to be notified when your digital QSL card is available.
LARC Member & Want to Operate as W8F?
As before, we have been granted use of the W8F callsign for a 2-week period beginning at 0000 UTC November 1 (2000 EDT November 1) and ending at 2359 UTC November 15 (1859 EST November 14). LARC members are authorized and encouraged to operate as W8F from their QTH during this time.
Follow these steps to have a successful operation as W8F
- Check a spotting site to see if someone else from the club is using W8F on the band you wish to activate.
- Fire up your favorite logging software. Make sure it can export to ADIF format (See below for reason why)
- Find a clear frequency.
- Self-spot yourself on the DX Cluster.
- See PDF file below for a script of what to say
- If operating SSB, say your own callsign once every 20 minutes.
- If people have questions regarding QSL Certificate, refer them to our QRZ page.
- HAVE FUN!
The Dossin Museum November 9 event (ONLY) is from Belle Isle State Park and will also be a POTA (Parks on the Air) activation, US-1487
This year we are doing QSL Certificates digitally! This will save those who volunteer for this event a lot of time. The way it will work is when we are finished operating W8F everyone who operated will send their log. That log will be uploaded to the QSL system. At which time, those who worked W8F will be able to search for their callsign and download their certificate. Because we are uploading this to a system, we need everyone to follow the same log format of ADIF. If you have any questions about this, please contact webmaster@livoniaarc.com
A goal for this year is to get as many LARC members on the air (CW, SSB, digital) and log as many contacts as possible.
