KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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International Museums Weekends is a good opportunity to hold a special event

Posted: 11 Apr 2021 12:16 PM PDT
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Special operating events are a lot of fun, both for the station operators
themselves and other hams who work them. The 13 Colonies Special Event, for
example, attracts thousands of participants, who search the bands for
stations operating from the 13 original U.S. colonies.

If you or your club are looking for an opportunity to set up a special
event, consider the International Museums Weekends (IMW), which takes place
on the third and fourth weekend in June every year. That makes this year’s
dates June 19-20 and June 26-27.

According the event’s website:

The intention of the event is to set up amateur radio special event
stations at as many of the museums as possible throughout the whole of the
world. I would hope for an HF, VHF, and if at all possible, a Ui-View
(APRS) packet station to be set up at each museum site, but the scope of
your station is entirely up to you. The choice of museum is also left very
much up to you, however aim for the largest and/or most unusual site you
can find.

The museums taking part over the years have included ships, castles, air
museums, Napoleonic forts, pumping stations, wireless museums, racing
museums and many others. For the purposes of the event, the word museum is
loosely interpreted. There really is no shortage of venues in which such an
event can be staged, no matter where in the world you might live.

During the first IMW in 2002 over 80 museums from all over the world took
part. The museums varied from tiny local village museums manned by a single
lone operator, to some of the worlds most prestigious ones. These were
accompanied by a great number of military museum sites, such as HMS Belfast
in London, RAF museums, and the Battleship New Jersey in the U.S.
Setting up your IMW special event stations

There are several web pages that have information on how to set up special
event stations in general, including:

Planning and Operating a Special Events Station
Setting up an amateur radio special event station


I won’t cover that here, but I will say a few words about setting up a
station for this event in particular:

The intent of International Museums Weekend is to set up your station at a
museum. Your museum of choice may not yet be open to the public, though.
That being the case, you can operate your special event from your home. Not
only that, you may have multiple operators, all operating from home.
If you have a museum that you or your club are already affiliated with,
choosing a museum is easy. Our club has a station at the Ann Arbor Hands-On
Museum, so our special event station will be set up to promote the Hands-On
Museum. If you’re not affiliated with a museum, you could approach a museum
in your area, and propose the special event station to them. If they’re
open, you could set up at the museum. If not, then you can still operate
from home.
Apply for a special-event call sign. FCC rules allow you to obtain 11 call
signs for special event stations. Five coordinators (ARRL, W5YI Group Inc,
Western Carolina Amateur Radio Society/VEC Inc, W4VEC Volunteer Examiners
Club of America and the Laurel Amateur Radio Club Inc) are authorized to
assign these call signs.
To register your special event station, go to the IMW website. One reason
that you’ll want to register is so that stations that contact you are
eligible for IMW awards.


Often, you hear special event stations working chasers one right after the
other, DX style. I’d suggest that you’ll have more fun if you take a few
minutes to actually chat with each station you contact. Mention something
about the museum that you’re representing and about the awards that are
available to them if they work at least 5 museum stations.

Let’s make this event bigger and better than ever. For more information on
the International Museums Weekends, visit their website.

The post International Museums Weekends is a good opportunity to hold a
special event appeared first on KB6NUs Ham Radio Blog.