ANZAC Gallipoli Centenary callsigns end

What a respectful conclusion reached by the ANZAC-suffixed callsigns on December 20 - the day in 1915 that ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corp) left Gallipoli. The Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) began its 8-month ANZAC 100 program on ANZAC Day April 25, when troops first landed at Gallipoli to do battle with the Turks, part of the then Ottoman Empire. ANZAC 100 was joined by similar commemorations held by the NZART New Zealand, TRAC in Turkey and UBA in Belgium.

All VK2-7, the territories VK1, VK8 twice at Casey Base VK0 in the Antarctic plus VK100ANZAC the national callsign. Each event was to submit electronic logs and QSL via the eQSL service.
The ‘last hurrah’ campaign had VI3ANZAC, VI4ANZAC, VI6ANZAC and VI8ANZAC on air December 12-20 which took in two weekends. Each station submitted electronic logs and will QSL via the eQSL service. The VI3ANZAC station was on various modes throughout the final period including AM, CW, SSB, Digital and Digital ATV.

The final day, December 20, had VI3ANZAC near the cannons at Fort Gellibrand in the inner-west of Melbourne. An historical military site that was part of the Port Phillip Bay protection, the gateway to Melbourne. Not forgotten were the contributions made by the Royal Australian Navy that holds the honour of being the First into the Dardanelles, with crew on the Australian Submarine HMAS AE2. That action of breaching the Dardanelles was the catalyst for the rest of the ANZAC force in that battle.

VI4ANZAC commemorated the Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train that helped troops to enter and leave Gallipoli. A team of up to 10 radio amateurs used all bands, AM, CW and SSB, to put VI4ANZAC on air, VI6ANZAC has its first closing weekend from a Huey helicopter amid a display at the RAAF Museum in Bull Creek. For December 19-20 the Ham College’s new shack was used. It had a heavy satellite focus, with activations via OSCARs 50, 85 29 and the Chinese FM bird, LilacSat. VI6ANZAC then hit the HF bands, but was not put off by some poor propagation, using SSB and sometimes CW.

VI8ANZAC proved very popular on air, particularly on December 20, when Stuie VK8NSB and Rowan VK8RD set up in the Charles Darwin National Park VKFF-0095. It worked 10 DXCC countries, as well as all of Australia.

Adding to its attraction was the activation of VKFF-0095 under the World Wide Flora & Fauna program.

All four ANZAC-prefixed callsigns in the 'last hurrah' are writing their stories to be sent to Amateur Radio magazine.

The WIA thanks all of the radio amateurs involved in the 50 separate events in ANZAC 100, and the many thousands worldwide who through making contact were part of the commemoration.

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