Location

The Somerset and Dorset Railway Heritage Trust are based at the former Midsomer Norton South Railway Station. The postal address is Midsomer Norton Station, Silver Street, Midsomer Norton, BA3 2EY. However, there are some specific details that will be of interest to radio hams:

  1. Lat/Long (WGS84 Geoid): 51.280956°,-2.482629°
  2. IARU: IO81sg
  3. IOTA: EU005 (UK Mainland)
  4. WAB: ST65 – England
  5. ///empires.wheat.drifting

Equipment Used

We’ve been undertaking our Special Events for a number of years now and have gradually fine tuned our equipment and setup over time. Railways on the Air is one of our favorite events and the only one where we regularly operate both SSB and Data. However, this year due to limited numbers of operators we elected to only operate SSB.

This year we used:

  1. Nissei DPS300GL power supply;
  2. Yaesu FT991 HF/6m/2m/70cm multi-mode transceiver;
  3. MFJ 993 auto atu;
  4. 80m doublet fed with 450Ω ladder line;
  5. Acer Aspire 8942 laptop running KLog under Ubuntu Studio 20.04LTS with the KDE Desktop Environment.

Following the success of the Clubs activities in the centre of Bristol for Lighthouses on the Air we were looking forward to a similar activity weekend for Railways on the Air. Sadly, as alluded to above, attendance was minimal. The event did coincide with the media frenzy induced fuel crisis which limited the ability for some of our members to travel into deepest, darkest Somerset.

Saturday

Andy G7KNA was joined by Ken G4XCB and Dave G4ULV for the initial station setup. This entailed erecting the centre pole to support the 80m doublet. The centre pole was strapped to the gazebo and the ends of the antenna tied off to convenient supports, with the feeder brought into the carriage through a window it was then necessary to arrange the internal equipment on a helpfully located table in the buffet car.

In Carriage Setup

After Ken and Dave departed in the late morning, Andy was joined by Greg MW7BUF.

During the day 31 contacts were made, slower than our usual rate but we were single handed for part of the day and spent some time operating “hunt and pounce” trying to locate other Railways on the Air Special Event Stations. In this vein we were reasonably successful working 9 other Special Event Stations over the course of the day.

Train at Platform

Sunday

The antenna was left up overnight, but the in carriage equipment was taken off-site overnight. Nevertheless the setup on Sunday was quite straight forward with just the internal equipment to be re-established in the buffet car.

In Carriage Setup

Andy was rejoined by Greg on Sunday although the day was slower with only 22 stations worked, of which 2 were other Special Event Stations.

Train Leaving

Log

Date (UTC) Time (UTC) Station Worked Band or Frequency Mode RST Operators Name QTH Gridsquare Notes
Sent Rec'd
25/09/21 10:53 G4PZK 80m SSB 59 59 Cliff Wimborne  
25/09/21 11:32 M0VZA 80m SSB 58 59 Tony Essex  
25/09/21 11:03 G3KAG 80m SSB 57 59 Tony Derbyshire Dales  
25/09/21 11:30 G0CKP 80m SSB 59 59 Steve West Kent  
25/09/21 11:26 G3PGA 80m SSB 59 59 Mike N Devon  
25/09/21 11:57 G0ORD 80m SSB 59 59 Eric N Forest Of Dean  
25/09/21 11:43 2E0GKO 80m SSB 59 59 Paul Maidstone  
25/09/21 11:37 G0MUK 80m SSB 59 59 Rick Portsmouth  
25/09/21 12:47 GB0LMR 40m SSB 59 59 Mark 55th anniversary Club Station British Railways ARS
25/09/21 12:10 GB4LHR 40m SSB 59 59 Ray Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway Furness ARS
25/09/21 12:35 OO21WCC/P 40m SSB 59 59 Peter   Special Event Staion for Cycle Race
25/09/21 12:39 GB2KDR 40m SSB 59 59 Dave Keith and Dufftown Railway Grampian Hilltoppers
25/09/21 13:09 GB0EOR 40m SSB 59 59 Sid Epping and Ongar Railway Harlow and District ARS
25/09/21 13:45 GB0HBL 40m SSB 59 59 Terry The Helston Branch Line Poldhu ARC
25/09/21 13:45 GX4FF/P 40m SSB 59 59 Andy Lakedean Nature Reserve GF0154
25/09/21 13:48 M0HEM 40m SSB 59 59 John Dagenham Dock John O’Toole
25/09/21 14:20 GB0ELR 40m SSB 58 59 Lynda East Lancashire Railway Bury RS
25/09/21 14:16 2E0XBT 40m SSB 58 59 Shaun Worthing  
25/09/21 14:04 F4VPL 40m SSB 59 59 Dave Brittany  
25/09/21 14:24 GB0WHR 40m SSB 59 57 Dave Whitrope Heritage Centre Galashiels and District ARS
25/09/21 14:06 M0GLP 40m SSB 59 59 Garry Nottingham  
25/09/21 14:49 GB5RSR 40m SSB 59 59 Nonia Ribble Steam Railway Central Lancashire ARC
25/09/21 14:38 G3EFX 40m SSB 59 59 Alan Bushey  
25/09/21 14:12 M0DFW 40m SSB 58 58 Dave Cambridge  
25/09/21 14:42 2M0DES 40m SSB 58 59      
25/09/21 14:48 GB1CR 40m SSB 57 58 Simon Corris Railway Aberystwyth and District ARC
25/09/21 14:28 M0XLT 40m SSB 59 59 Kevin Skipton  
25/09/21 14:50 GM4WZG 40m SSB 59 59      
25/09/21 15:08 G0JBA/P 40m SSB 57 59 Phil    
25/09/21 15:53 GI0LGV 40m SSB 59 59   N Of Belfast  
25/09/21 15:36 G3RXQ 40m SSB 59 59 Stuart Lancaster  
26/09/21 10:29 2E0HFR 40m SSB 56 57 Rikki Bristol  
26/09/21 10:01 F8FLK 40m SSB 59 59 Terri N France  
26/09/21 10:40 F5VCR 40m SSB 58 59 Derek Nw France  
26/09/21 10:19 G3YZY 40m SSB 59 59 Howard Portsmouth  
26/09/21 10:33 DM3AVB 40m SSB 55 57      
26/09/21 10:32 G8HBS 40m SSB 59 59 Peter Great Yarmouth  
26/09/21 10:45 M0JCF 40m SSB 59 59 Mark Sidcup  
26/09/21 10:05 G0BPK 40m SSB 58 59 Nigel Pontifract  
26/09/21 10:22 DK8VX 40m SSB 59 59      
26/09/21 10:01 PH3ADD 40m SSB 59 59      
26/09/21 10:41 G7SQW/P 40m SSB 59 59 Andy Buckingham Marshes GF0218
26/09/21 11:05 M0MJA/P 40m SSB 58 59     GF0268
26/09/21 11:42 GB0NDR 40m SSB 59 59 Richard North Dorset Railway Shillingstone Station Flight Refuelling ARS
26/09/21 11:02 G4ACS 40m SSB 57 59 Geoff Kinver South Staffordshire  
26/09/21 11:15 MW0IDT 40m SSB 59 59 Ian Llantwit Major  
26/09/21 11:13 M0SDY 40m SSB 59 59 Paul    
26/09/21 12:39 GB2EVR 40m SSB 59 59 Matt Eden Valley Railway Eden Valley Railway
26/09/21 12:21 M0AUG 40m SSB 59 59 Geoff    
26/09/21 13:41 M0JKI 80m SSB 59 59 Adrian Stowmarket  
26/09/21 13:35 G7KYH 80m SSB 59 59 John Fox Norton Nr Banbury  
26/09/21 13:58 G2NV 80m SSB 59 59 Tom    
26/09/21 14:54 M7AOK 80m SSB 59 59 Steve