There is a long history behind both events. I'll try to make it short. In 1976 the United States Congress, as part of our country's bi-centennial, ordained the FIRST weekend in August as National Lighthouse Weekend. It has remained so in the USA ever since, with many lights opening their doors to the public on that weekend and giving tours etc.
In 1996, following patriotic tradition, I suggested a ham radio national lighthouse weekend to co-incide with the FOURTH of JULY and posted a notice to this effect on this new way of communicating -- the internet. It wasnt long before I heard a cry of objection from USA hams: "You can't do that! Lighthouse weekend, by government decree, is the FIRST weekend in August; so I posted another notice changing the date from July 4th to the FIRST weekend in August.
It wasn't long before I heard from Mike, GM4SUC, who said, "Hey, you can't do that! Lighthouse weekend is the THIRD weekend in August in Europe and the rest of the world." I also heard from Finn Emsby, OZ4EL, and the Danish Lighthouse Society. Mike, Finn, and I got together, to lay down the plans and guidelines for a ham radio lighthouse weekend.
Mike was insistent on the THIRD weekend because any other weekend conflicted with some other European events. The active USA lighthouse hams at the time (notably N2OB, "Ol' Barney," the Barnegat Lighthouse club) insisted that we follow the Congressional decree of the FIRST weekend. Neither side would budge -- mostly out of national pride and tradition.
It was at this point that Finn wrote me a note suggesting that I create a national NLLW in the USA and join in the ILLW for an international weekend later in the month. He also suggested joining forces with the Danish Lighthouse Society to create a worldwide ham radio lighthouse organization. It was out of this idea and suggestion from Finn OZ4EL that the ARLHS was born, and the ARLHS and DLS have remained "sister societies" ever since.
So we all agreed to disagree on the dates. Two weekends were born, and in the next two years both events grew in popularity. A year later the ARLHS was born and in 2000 was officially recorded and trademarked.
Mike also insisted that the ILLW would always remain an EVENT whereas the ARLHS Board of Directors was under pressure from its membership to make the NLLW a CONTEST. I had promised Mike that his orginal EVENT idea and THIRD weekend would always remain as far as the ILLW was concerned. He agreed that I could do whatever I wished with the ARLHS and the NLLW. And that's the way it remains today.
In the ensuing years, several proposals have been suggested to combine the two weekends and/or to merge the ILLW into the ARLHS, but this national pride and tradition thing always comes up.
Hope that explains it to all those history buffs who wanna know why!
Created on ... May 04, 2007