Railways on the Air station GB0ESR

This is an event organised by MidSARC who have done all the hard work in setting up the station and operating. John G8VZA volunteers with the East Somerset Railway so thanks and kudos to the guys at MidSARC. Matt 2E0FNT and myself G7LEE gave a hand with operating on Sunday. I worked a few of the other railways on Sunday afternoon on HF, but Simon and Dave did the vast majority of the work filling four A4 log sheets on 40m, well done guys. 2m was a bit flat on Sunday, there was the Weston rally so fewer stations on the air.

John G8VZA at the VHF station

Simon G8DMN on the HF station

Rik M0RKM on the right at the moving VHF station GB0ESR/P note the Slim Jim on the left

Matt 2E0FNT on the VHF station

Callum M7AJO on the VHF station

Operating from the moving train was always going to be a challenge, Matt worked two stations from the train as GB0ESR/P at 11:40 but we had to use the GB3WR repeater

Matt 2E0FNT operating GB0ESR/P on the train, contacting Derrick M0WOB via GB3WR repeater as the 2m takeoff from Mendip Vale wasn’t ideal

You can't have a post about trains without some pictures of trains

We had gorgeous weather and the line was in steam, so some great background SFX for some of the contacts! Note there’s a steam whistle at 7s in so don’t wind the volume up too much!

The G5RV HF antenna with the 2m antenna on the top

All in all good fun and thanks very much to the team at MidSARC and John G8VZA for arranging a great operating position on the platform for us.