Centenary Transmissions

Most people now about the first crossing of the Channel by Louis Bleriot on July 25th 1909. He won a £1000 prize from the Daily Mail (I'll clean the keyboard having typed that). Who'd have thought they'd pay a prize to an immigrant!! How many people know about the Englishman who made the first non stop return channel crossing on June 2nd 1910. You can find out all about it here.

As part of the celebration of Charles Stewart Rolls feat the Dover Amateur Radio Club are holding an event by the Monument. The Ariel the one of the radios in high above on a kite, and the call sign is GB1CR in honour of the aviator.

Charles Rolls was also the joint founder of Rolls Royce, but unfortunately he didn't live long enough to see the huge success his company had made. On July 12th he was killed during a flying display at Hengistbury Airfield, Bournemouth. He was the first Briton to be killed in a flying accident and the 11th internationally.

When I was there they were receiving calls from France, Germany and Holland, but later, when the sun went down, they would have been in touch with countries as distant as Japan.

I don't think the police visit was official, just a bit of curiosity. It was interesting to see the constable on the left carefully shielding his cigarette in his right hand, rather like a surreptitious drag by a schoolboy in the playground.

I've noticed this week that Dunnocks are feeding a lot on the hanging feeders. This isn't something that I've noticed before, I don't know how widespread this is. Notice the screw used as a perch, a post squirrel repair job.