Ham Radio Dying In The Vatican

Ham radio could soon be a thing of the past in the Vatican. This is because there are no longer any H-V prefix stations to man the controls. Amateur Radio Newsline's Mark Abramovich, N-T-3-V, was in Rome covering the selection of the Catholic Church's new pontiff when he discovered that ham radio operations from all three Vatican stations may soon be Q-R-T for good:

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This was one of those stories I really didn't expect to find. I knew the challenge of going over to Rome to cover the election and installation of a new pope would be enormous. I had been there in 2000 to cover the elevation of St. Katharine Drexel from Philadelphia. This time, this ham was determined to take a little bit of personal time to investigate the status of amateur radio at the Vatican and also to look into the possibility of visiting one of the few Vatican ham radio stations.

Much to my surprise, e-mails sent a week in advance of the visit to some of the call signs I managed to find went unanswered. A quick call to the American Radio Relay League for an assist produced a call sign at Vatican Radio, but there was no response to an email sent there, either.

When I finally got to Rome, the days were long and the story of the papal conclave and the elevation of the new pope kept all of us in the news media busy. It wasn't until near the end of my eight days covering the story that I learned the shocking news - ham radio may be disappearing from the Vatican.

It came at the end of a briefing from the director of the Vatican's TV operations about the papal installation Mass. I approached one of the engineers handling sound for the news briefing and asked him about ham radio. He pointed me to Monsignor Lombardi, who handles communications for Vatican TV and Radio.

I asked Monsignor Lombardi about the Vatican's ham stations and was shocked to learn that they had all fallen silent. That's right, he says HV1CN - assigned to Vatican Radio - as well as HV5PUL, operated out of the Pontifical Lateran University, and HV3SJ, held by the Jesuit house in the Vatican City - were all inactive/>

Now I had learned just days earlier that the North American College located on Vatican territory on the Geniculum Hill above St. Peter's Square had a ham station - I spotted the beam on a trip up there to meet seminarians studying there who are from the Camden area just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.

Monsignor Lombardi said as far as he knew, that was the only station left in Vatican territory. But the seminarians and another monsignor who was responsible for clearing communications with the North American College, were unable to tell me anything about it. One said he heard it was going to be dismantled because there were problems.

I was unable to learn more about those problems due to the press of my work covering the installation Mass for the new Pope Benedict XVI and the aftermath for my commercial news station in Philadelphia. However, emails are going back and forth to find out the status of the North American College's station and to press for more information about getting it re-activated. At this point, I don't even know whether it has an active call sign.

If Vatican ham radio is to survive, it looks like it will take an experienced DXer with some good diplomatic skills to get in touch with the Vatican or the North American College to offer an assist in keeping it alive.

In the meantime, Amateur Radio Newsline will stay on top of developments and report them to you here. For now, making ready to depart from Rome, I'm Mark Abramowicz NT3V signing /HV from St. Peter's Square for Amateur Radio Newsline.

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If all this comes to pass as Mark says, then the only way you will ever again hear H-V stations I if a Dxpedition is mounted to put the Vatican back on the air. According to the 425 DX Newsletter, stations in the Vatican are among the most wanted contacts, worldwide. (ARNewsline(tm))

Source: Amateur Radio Newsline Report 1447