International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend

Since the beginning of the 20th century there has been a strong relationship between wireless / radio communications and Maritime history in the Atlantic Provinces.

It started in 1901 with Marconi and the first transatlantic wireless communication from Signal Hill in St. John’s Newfoundland. A single letter “S” or in Morse Code “dot dot dot” was transmitted to England.

This was followed by the first full transatlantic message from Table Head Cape Breton in 1902 and quickly grew to become a network of ship to shore communications stations that included the Canadian pacific coast and the great lakes by 1910.

These wireless stations provided location, news and weather information to and from the ships at sea as well as personal messages. There was even a Marconi service where daily news messages were broadcast – in morse code – to the ships that could be posted for passengers to read.

Wireless was also of course depended on for distress messages from ships at sea and many Marconi wireless stations were co-located with lighthouses.

This was the case for the Marconi station at Cape Race Newfoundland that is famous for being the first shore communications stations to respond to the SOS message from the sinking Titanic on April 14th, 1912.

In recognition of this historical relationship between lighthouses and wireless there is an annual event (the third full weekend in August) called the International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend. There are often more than 500 lighthouses located in 40 countries involved who participate.

This year the lighthouse at Cape Jourimain will be among those participating. One of only a few in Canada. The lighthouse will be outfitted with a wireless shortwave station that is staffed with members of the local Amateur (HAM) Radio Club WARC.

They will be communicating on shortwave radio with other lighthouses around the world just as Marconi did at the turn of the century.

Please come for a visit and a talk to the world via radio. The wireless station will be active from 9am to 3pm.