[This event is dedicated to my friend and fellow ROTA participant over the years, the now sadly Silent Key Gavin Keegan G6DGK. He passed away while I was running this event. Maybe in some way, that was quite fitting.]
A wonderful day was had at Beech Hurst Railway in Haywards Heath on Sunday 28th September, to celebrate Railways On The Air, or ROTA.
I also used the opportunity for a Parks On The Air activation (Beech Hurst is POTA park reference GB-4098).
The station was operated under the Special Event Callsign GB0BHR, although annoyingly, once registered with OFCOM, I couldn't subsequently register the call at QRZ.com as it had previously been used back in 2010 at a different railway. I did email the chap holding the QRZ entry to see if he would release it but sadly received no reply. Sorry to all those stations for whom this was somewhat confusing! In retrospect, I guess I should have checked first. Lesson learned.
I arrived at about 10:45am in the railway club's car park (thanks again to Chris G4ZCS - this turned out to be a cracking operating location, allowing me to deploy a proper antenna) and began setting up.
I took my time - it was just me and I was in no rush. The day was just intended to be a bit of fun, and boy did it turn out to be an exciting day!
The private car park was perfect. Accessible to the passing public if they wanted to come and chat (and many did), but out-of-the-way enough to not have to be overly concerned with issues of safety such as radiated power levels etc. Visibility around the site was excellent, and with my antenna of choice - an inverted 'L' end-fed half-wave for 40m, mitigating all those risks was easy. Nobody is going to trip over a wire 12m in the air!
I'd just finished putting everything together, when a very nice chap named Peter turned up and introduced himself as a member of the Crawley Amateur Radio Club. I'm sorry Peter if you're reading this. I told you I was hopeless at remembering callsigns for longer than a brief QSO.
He asked if I would mind him staying, but I was glad of the company and he was an interesting and knowledgeable guy.
I've now perfected the craft of nailing (not literally, I promise) MDF together to create a comfy shack in the back seat of my old banger, and after testing the tune on the antenna, it was great on 20m, but around 1:1.9 on the phone portion of the 40m band. Not a problem for the internal tuner on my field radio - a Yaesu FT-710 - and I did want to start off on that band. Turns out, it was the only band I used all day, but more of that later.
After getting twenty or so contacts in the log (band conditions were slightly noisy, but stations were coming in comfortably, none the less) I took a break as Merv M0WVE turned up with his hand-held homebrew Yagi, hoping to track a few overhead satellite passes. Between the three of us, most God-fearing members of the public were now giving us a wide berth, as we did look like a right bunch of nerds.
Soon after we were graced with the company of Dick G1CWP. We were honoured that he had fired up his mobility scooter just to come and visit us, but soon learned that he had mainly been out to get a classic cooked breakfast at the Harvester restaurant at the front of the park. Still, we were grateful for the check-in!
Also calling in on the radio were club members Chris G4ZCS and the Guv'nor, MSARS president Ken G3WYN as well as a couple of other ROTA stations, all of which were very welcome.
Ken mentioned he would try and pop down to see us, but I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly until we saw him strolling towards us half an hour later with his son and daughter-in-law (lovely people - I've met them before). Ken parked himself amongst us whist his family nipped off for a cheeky coffee. Made my day that Ken was able to get out and visit us.
Everyone stuck around for quite a while, until some light but persistent (and unforecast, I might say) drizzle set in.
I myself settled down to some serious radio, and that doesn't happen very often!
The log was filling up nicely, and the weather cheered up too. My lovely wife turned up for a visit dragging our dog, and eventually brought me a cup of tea from the little cafe in the middle of the park (this really is a great location to organise a radio event!)
Meanwhile the antenna was performing really well, and I was getting signal reports of 59+++ from all over the country.
Another couple of visitors turned up for a chat, whom I didn't recognise, and I regaled them with some public-curated waffle about amateur radio.
It soon dawned on me however that they were new MSARS member Tony M0WND and his partner. Also really nice people, and who have the two most adorable Whippets! We chatted for quite a while before I realised that we are both POTA enthusiasts, and indeed have both been early-activators of some of our local parks - and I have to tell you that there is a great friendly rivalry in being the first to get to a park :D
I thought I recognised that callsign...
I'm really pleased that we can attract members like this, and hopefully the club can get more outdoor radio events organised locally.
After waving them off, it was back to the radio. I decided to add a spot for myself on the POTA website for my newly adjusted 40m frequency, and then it happened.
I was getting a very healthy flow of contacts from UK stations, including about nine (need to check...) railways, but the power of POTA suddenly kicked in and I found myself working a crazy pile-up of stations up and down the UK, topped off with lots of French, Belgian, and Dutch interest. Also call-ins from Spain, Germany and even Sweden.
It was madness, but all good things must come to an end.
I had to move frequencies a couple of times, as big European stations started battering my little old 100W effort, and then a stonking great Italian station plonked himself right on top of me and I decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and that I should probably pack it in for the day at around 4:45pm.
I had a great time. Hopefully my visitors had some fun too, and I can't wait for the next excuse to get to an outdoor venue with my gear.
And yes, just to prove the doubters wrong, I CAN do an SSB pileup if I choose to!
109 contacts in the log, and I didn't even get time to go digital. Log below if anyone is interested.
Have fun!
Berni M0XYF
