A wonderful afternoon of proper outdoor radio fun, interesting chat and beautiful scenery, not to mention the evocative soundtrack provided by the steam locos snorting their way north out of Horsted Keynes station on the Bluebell Railway.
The weather was entirely cooperative and it was very comfortable sitting around and chewing the fat in shorts and a t-shirt. A few circular dog-walks, the melodic sounds of a reasonable tribute band wafting up occasionally from platform one to our elevated position in the top field (apart from the murderous rendition of Wonderwall, for which I reported they guy for breach of copyright, it was that bad).
Oh, I forgot to mention that the chaps from DRG (Downland Radio Group) from who we received a gracious invite for the weekend, worked their way relentlessly through a pile-up for the entire four hours I was there. Excellent!
A few MSARS members made their way into the log on the day, including Adrian, Ron and Rob that I heard. Maybe a couple of dozen other ROTA stations too. Later in the afternoon, continental stations outnumbered the GB stations, with QSO's predominantly on 40m. Really good results from the 66' inverted V doublet.
I chased them down from my shack on Sunday too, and left my mark in their log at 7.170MHz.
A huge thanks to Gavin for the invite, and to the other members of the DRG for their hospitality and good company. I was at their last ROTA in 2019, and as long as we're invited back, I'll definitely be making it a regular reservation in my diary.
You can find out more about the SES GB0BR (Bluebell Railway) on QRZ here: https://www.qrz.com/db/GB0BR and on ROTA in general here: https://rota.barac.org.uk/
A great day catching up with a handful of old friends, and making a few new ones too.
Berni M0XYF
