Airfields 2026

Introduction

Middlezoy Aerodrome is located just outside Westonzoyland on part of the site of the wartime RAF Weston Zoyland airbase. Not the easiest place in the world to find, it isn’t exactly hidden away either and the site is used for a number of public events including Westcountry WarAg and the Somerset Aerofest. The postal address is: Middlezoy Aerodrome Ltd, Middlezoy, Somerset, TA7 0JS. However, there are some additional details that will be of interest to Radio Hams:

• Lat/Long (WGS84 Geoid): 51.102590°N, 2.902985°W
• OSGR: ST 36873 34087 (6 figure ST368340)
• IARU Locator: IO81nc
• WAB: ST33
• IOTA: EU005 (Mainland UK)
• What 3 Words: ///flow.triangles.clustered (Entrance to the Operating Post)
• What 3 Words: ///unstated.chapters.rounds (Entrance to the Site)
• UKBOTA (Bunkers on the Air): B/G-1760 RAF Weston Zoyland, WW2 ground defence bunker cluster

Location

The wartime RAF Weston Zoyland Airfield no longer exists in full. The site was returned to agricultural use in 1969 having last seen active duty in 1958. This image of the airfield in 1944 shows how different things are compared to present day:

The most notable missing element in the photo above is the lack of the A372 which now bisects the original airfield. Overlaying (to the best of our abilities) the original runways on a modern map shows the changes that have occurred.

In fact the “new” A372 appears to have been built on a section of the original wartime runway 11/29. The airfield to the north of the “new” A372 has retained the Westonzoyland name and is currently used for Micro-Lights as the home for Westonzoyland Flying Club. To the south of the “new” A372, but still well within the boundary of the original wartime RAF Weston Zoyland Airfield, is Middlezoy Aerodrome and this was to be our “home” for the weekend of Airfields on the Air. To be slightly more accurate we were based in the Nissen Hut that serves as Airfield Ops and, during events such as War Ag, as catering space.

Dr Stuart C Blank has written a comprehensive history of RAF Weston Zoyland from its inception in the 1920s through to the end of operations in the 1950s, a copy of his document ‘A History of Royal Air Force Station Weston Zoyland From the 1920’s to the 1950’s‘ can be found at the link.

Participating Stations

There were 31 participating stations this year compared to 22 in 2025 continuing an general upward trend for the number of participating stations since we have been participating in 2023, although 2023 had a few more stations despite double counting a couple of activiations under different callsigns.

Operation

For the Amateurs (A Poem on Solar Storms and Signal Loss)

They tune their dials with quiet care,
And send their signals through the air.
But high above, the heavens flare—
And leave the bands in disrepair.

For when the Sun lets loose its might,
With X-class flares that blaze so bright,
The D-layer wakes in harsh alarm,
And HF suffers sudden harm.

From 80 meters to ten and more,
The signals vanish, mute and sore.
On daylight’s side, the bands fall dead—
As if the ionosphere had fled.

And in the north where cold winds roam,
The polar paths are not a home.
For charged particles flood the skies,
And steal the sound from hams so wise.

Auroral curtains twist and dance,
But give no signal a fair chance.
Their glow may awe the earthly eye,
But scatter voices as they fly.

CW and SSB may fail,
Distorted like a ghostly wail.
Yet Morse and FT8 push through—
The hardy modes of just a few.

So hams take heart when signals fade,
This too shall pass, though hopes be frayed.
For skies that storm will calm once more,
And DX calls will fill the floor.

Mark Waldrop KE4WA

Don’t worry, we’re not about to go all highbrow and cultural, you can rest assured that we’ll still be eating forecourt food and listening to rock music. But we felt that this particular missive so neatly summarised our Airfields on the Air activation this year that it was worthy of inclusion. As you’ll have seen from the callsign of the author, we can’t claim any credit for this verse, so thank you to Mark Waldrop KE4WA

It’s not going to come as a surprise, then, if we talk about propagation before getting into the event itself, as propagation was going to play a significant part of the weekend of 11/12 April 2026.

It is a known fact that the HF bands were more or less unusable on Saturday 11 April 2026 with difficult conditions during the morning of Sunday 12 April 2026. Looking for a single reason for this has been somewhat fruitless, however Google Gemini suggests the following:

Yes, there were coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and significant solar activity leading up to and around 11 April 2026, including a partial-halo CME detected around 12 April 2026. While solar activity was initially noted as quiet around 9–13 April 2026, several active regions and far-side eruptions were reported during that period.

Key Solar Activity Around 11 April 2026:

12 April 2026: A partial-halo CME was launched from an active sunspot near the center of the solar disk, with an Earth-directed component expected to arrive later in the weekend, potentially causing a G2-class geomagnetic storm.

10-13 April 2026: Although solar activity was considered moderate with fewer sunspot groups, positive polarity coronal hole high-speed streams were active.

Far-Side Eruptions: Reports indicated active regions behind the eastern limb, suggesting the potential for Earth-directed CMEs as they rotated into view.

While some CMEs during this period did not have a direct, strong impact, the sun was actively producing filaments and eruptions, specifically noting activity on 10 April and 12 April 2026

On Saturday the team was one man down as Andy G7KNA had to attend to RSGB duties at the QRP Convention in Sherborne.

Nevertheless, our intrepid team of Greg 2W1BUF, Mark M0SKV and David M7GVY dutifully arrived at Middlezoy Aerodrome and set the station up in the normal fashion. Our equipment was pretty much the tried and tested gear we’ve been using for many years:

• Nissei DPS300GL power supply,
• Yaesu FT991 HF/6m/2m/70cm multi-mode transceiver,
• MFJ 993 auto atu,
• 80m flexweave half-wave doublet fed with 450Ω ladder line supported at the feedpoint by a MFJ-1908H 13m telescopic mast,
• Acer Aspire 8942 laptop running CQRLog under Debian 13 “Trixie” with the Cinnamon Desktop, and
• 2.5kW petrol generator.

We had to eschew our usual audio solution comprising:

• Behringer XENYX 302USB audio mixer, and
• Logitech external powered speakers,

This was because, when setting up, the team discovered that the 10V “wall-wart” power adaptor for the speakers was not with the usual equipment. For that matter neither was the DC lead for the FT991. Whilst operating without the audio accessories was possible, operating with the DC lead was less practical. Fortunately, someone on the team happened to have a compatible DC lead so eveything was operational. We blame the people who packed the Special Event kit away at the end of Railways on the Air in September 2025. Go and read our write-up of that event for more information.

We also didn’t have the damaged 9m telescopic “roach pole” that we usually use to support one end of the doublet antenna but the team came up with a creative solution for that.

Andy G7KNA arrived on site, direct from the QRP Convention around 14:30 to discover the team sat outside the Nissen Hut essentially enjoying the springtime weather whilst bemoaning the propagation and lamenting the fact that they’d only managed 3 contacts and all of those were well outside the UK.

And that about wraps up the Saturday activites. We packed the kit up for the afternoon, lowered the antenna mast as the winds were quite strong and headed for home hoping for better propagation on Sunday.

Sunday dawned with Andy G7KNA and Kenneth M7MYU arriving on site first. Andy G7KNA had hoped to have a go at capturing SSTV images from the ISS as there was an ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) SSTV activity period in progress. Sadly Andy G7KNA wasn’t able to do this as he’d forgotton to bring a USB adpater as he needed 3 USB A ports and his Lenovo T480 only had 2.

In the absence of any opportunity to play with the ARISS ISS SSTV, Andy G7KNA and Kenneth M7MYU re-erected the antenna at its full height and set up the equipment in the Nissen Hut. They were shortly joined by Greg 2W1BUF and a couple of members of Uskmouth Radio Club.

Propagation was beginning to return to normal but the early part of Sunday was still slow going. Early on it looked like the skip distance on 40m was still long as the first contact of the day was with a French station. It took over an hour and a quarter before we made the second contact of the day which was within the UK.

After that, the contacts became more frequent, although the propagation continued to do odd things as we had a string of contacts, including RAF Bogside, into Scotland and Northern Ireland with a sprinkling of European stations.

We worked a further 4 registered participating airfields: RAF Middleton St. George, RAF Wyton, RAF Dalton and RAF Brinbrook. We tried very hard to work Mal MW6HED who was activiating RAF Carew Cheriton for the first time but sadly the propagation gods were against us. Subsequent conversations with Mal MW6HED informed us that he could hear the stations we were working but he couldn’t hear us and, in fairness, we couldn’t hear him either.

Overall, not our best year in terms of outright number of QSO’s, we only managed 67 compared to 75 in 2025 and over 100 in the previous years. But, it was a fun year and we’ve added to our overall haul of participating Airfields.

Map of Participating Stations Worked by GB0WZL in 2026

The map shows a different distribution of worked particiapting airfields than in the previous 3 years that we’ve taken part with a more North-South distribution compared to our more usual East-West pattern. Whether this was wholly down to the propagation this weekend of whether it also had to do with the positioning of one leg of our doublet against a metal barn side is unclear.

Log of Stations Worked by GB0WZL in 2026

Date (UTC)	Time (UTC)	Station Worked	Band	Mode	Sent		Received		Operator’s Name	QTH	IARU Locator	Dist (km)	Notes
					RST	No.	RST	No.
11/04/26	11:36	YT7WR/P	20m	SSB	59		59			EU
11/04/26	13:42	E7AA	20m	SSB	59		59			EU			THE ASSOCIATION RADIO AMATEURS OF HERZEG-BOSNIA
11/04/26	13:53	PI80LDN	20m	SSB	59		59			Leiden EU			“Water Towers On The Air”
12/04/26	09:44	F8CHM	40m	SSB	59		59		John	EU
12/04/26	11:01	M8ONY	40m	SSB	59		59		Matt	EU
12/04/26	11:06	MM0UDI	40m	SSB	59		59		Robbie	EU
12/04/26	11:08	GM0AYR/P	40m	SSB	57		57		Roy	RAF Bogside			Operated by Ayr ARG
12/04/26	11:20	PH3BDJ	40m	SSB	59		57		Bram	EU
12/04/26	11:22	MM7JNT	40m	SSB	59		59		Julian	EU
12/04/26	11:30	PD7DVA	40m	SSB	55		55			EU
12/04/26	11:32	2M0YCG	40m	SSB	55		55			EU
12/04/26	11:34	MI0DJM	40m	SSB	59		59		Joe	EU
12/04/26	11:36	F4FTJ	40m	SSB	57		59		Thomas	EU
12/04/26	11:37	HN9MOH	40m	SSB	58		57			AS
12/04/26	11:38	GI4SZW	40m	SSB	59		59			EU
12/04/26	11:39	G6UPM	40m	SSB	59		59		Andy	EU
12/04/26	11:41	PD3AR	40m	SSB	56		57			EU
12/04/26	11:42	M0ABG	40m	SSB	59		59			EU
12/04/26	11:47	M8TMM	40m	SSB	56		59		Jim	East Coast UK EU			using 10w tx power
12/04/26	11:50	G8DIG	40m	SSB	56		59			EU
12/04/26	11:51	PA7RA	40m	SSB	59		59		Rien	EU
12/04/26	11:53	DL2EF	40m	SSB	59		59			EU
12/04/26	11:54	PA1BOB	40m	SSB	59		58			EU
12/04/26	11:56	GB0GP	40m	SSB	59		59		Matt	RAF Middleton St George			Operated by M0LYI
12/04/26	11:57	IK1GPG	40m	SSB	59		58			EU
12/04/26	11:58	G4NYC	40m	SSB	54		56		Joe	EU
12/04/26	12:02	GB0WYT	40m	SSB	59		59		Dave	RAF Wyton			Operated by Huntingdonshire ARS
12/04/26	12:04	ON7LU/P	40m	SSB	59		59			EU
12/04/26	12:05	EI6IF	40m	SSB	59		59			EU
12/04/26	12:05	EI6JF	40m	SSB	59		56		Mike	EU
12/04/26	12:07	M0HQJ	40m	SSB	54		56		Herry	RAF Dalton			Operated by M0HQJ
12/04/26	12:15	GB1BK	40m	SSB	59		59		Phil	RAF Binbrook			Operated by East Midlands EMERG
12/04/26	12:18	M8NMK	40m	SSB	57		56		Simon	Durham EU
12/04/26	12:21	DL7OO	40m	SSB	59		59		Klaus	Cologne EU
12/04/26	12:24	PA3EFR	40m	SSB	59		59		Erwin	EU
12/04/26	12:28	M7IHK	40m	SSB	55		59		Martin	Lincoln EU
12/04/26	12:32	GM4VYQ	40m	SSB	59		59			RAF Macrahanish EU
12/04/26	12:34	G2XV	40m	SSB	42		57		Garith	EU
12/04/26	12:38	MM0JTV	40m	SSB	55		59		John	Glasgow EU
12/04/26	12:41	PA3GLK	40m	SSB	34		57		Dave	EU
12/04/26	12:47	2E0EES	40m	SSB	44		40		Steve	EU
12/04/26	12:54	MW9WJS	40m	SSB	23		56		Tom	EU
12/04/26	12:57	2M0AZC	40m	SSB	55		56		Dave	EU
12/04/26	13:02	2E0FEH	40m	SSB	30		57		Karl	EU
12/04/26	13:06	MI0TLG	40m	SSB	59		59		Will	Lisburn EU
12/04/26	13:09	M7FLL	40m	SSB	57		59		Roger	Woodbridge EU
12/04/26	13:11	M8FQT	40m	SSB	55		59		John	EU
12/04/26	13:13	M8GSY	40m	SSB	59		59		Ed	London Heathrow Airport EU
12/04/26	13:14	M9XBB	40m	SSB	53		55			EU
12/04/26	13:16	MM0CEZ	40m	SSB	56		58		Peter	Glasgow EU
12/04/26	13:18	PA1MV	40m	SSB	58		59			EU
12/04/26	13:24	G4WIA	40m	SSB	57		59		Ivan	EU
12/04/26	13:28	PD4PS	40m	SSB	58		59		Paul	EU
12/04/26	13:30	G3VCG	40m	SSB	59		59		Don	Chelmsford EU
12/04/26	13:32	M6MHG	40m	SSB	58		59			EU
12/04/26	13:34	MI6BFJ	40m	SSB	59		57			EU
12/04/26	13:36	M0BMX	40m	SSB	59		59		Mel	EU
12/04/26	13:37	G0VYO	40m	SSB	59		57		Paul	York EU
12/04/26	13:40	GD5MUP	40m	SSB	59		59			EU
12/04/26	13:41	M7XPR	40m	SSB	53		59			EU
12/04/26	13:59	G4MIU	40m	SSB	57		57		Keith	Braintree EU
12/04/26	14:07	G3OKA	40m	SSB	59		59		John	Liverpool EU
12/04/26	14:10	G4DRI	40m	SSB	59		59		Ron	EU
12/04/26	14:11	M0IOW	40m	SSB	59		58		Barry	Isle of Wight EU
12/04/26	14:14	MM0GGI	40m	SSB	54		58		John	NW Highlands EU
12/04/26	14:23	G0UNJ	40m	SSB	59		58		Chris	Oldham EU
12/04/26	14:33	LA1VTA	40m	SSB	43		24			South Norway EU

10 Year RSL Tracker (2017 – 2026)

The Regional Secondary Locators (RSLs) are optional (except in the case of Intermediate Licences commencing with a 2 when they are mandatory) letters altered or added to an individual or club amateur radio callsign to denote which part of the United Kingdom the station is operating from, the map and table below indicate the principles:

Location	Foundation Callsigns	Intermediate Callsigns	Full Callsigns	Club Callsigns	Special Event Callsigns
England	M#☐☐☐	2E#☐☐☐	G#☐☐☐ M#☐☐☐	GX#☐☐☐ MX#☐☐☐	GB~ Following the implementation of Phases 2 and 3 of the Amateur Radio Licence changes that commenced in 2024, since the latter part of 2025 the new SES format will allow call signs to a maximum 6 characters in length, in the format ‘GBdccccca’ (d = digit other than 3 or 7, c = digit or letter, a = letter). Licensees are able to choose a range of SES call signs, as long as they start ‘GB’
Guernsey	MU#☐☐☐	2U#☐☐☐	GU#☐☐☐ MU#☐☐☐	GP#☐☐☐ MP#☐☐☐
Isle of Man	MD#☐☐☐	2D#☐☐☐	GD#☐☐☐ MD#☐☐☐	GT#☐☐☐ MT#☐☐☐
Jersey	MJ#☐☐☐	2J#☐☐☐	GJ#☐☐☐ MJ#☐☐☐	GH#☐☐☐ MH#☐☐☐
Northern Ireland	MI#☐☐☐	2I#☐☐☐	GI#☐☐☐ MI#☐☐☐	GN#☐☐☐ MN#☐☐☐
Scotland	MM#☐☐☐	2M#☐☐☐	GM#☐☐☐ MM#☐☐☐	GS#☐☐☐ MS#☐☐☐
Wales	MW#☐☐☐	2W#☐☐☐	GW#☐☐☐ MW#☐☐☐	GC#☐☐☐ MC#☐☐☐

We have long harboured the ambition to work all RSL’s on a single Special Event or contest but have yet to manage this (although we have come close on a few occasions). We didn’t manage it again this time either, but we live in hope!

		2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026
A o t A	England	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☑	☑	☑	☑
	Guernsey	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☒	☒	☒	☒
	Isle of Man	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☒	☑	☒	☑
	Jersey	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☒	☒	☒	☒
	Northern Ireland	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☑	☑	☒	☑
	Scotland	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☑	☑	☑	☑
	Wales	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☑	☑	☑	☑
M o t A	England	☑	☑	☑	☐	☐	☑	☑	☑	☑	☐
	Guernsey	☒	☒	☒	☐	☐	☑	☒	☒	☒	☐
	Isle of Man	☒	☒	☒	☐	☐	☑	☒	☒	☒	☐
	Jersey	☒	☑	☒	☐	☐	☒	☒	☒	☒	☐
	Northern Ireland	☒	☒	☒	☐	☐	☑	☑	☒	☑	☐
	Scotland	☑	☑	☒	☐	☐	☑	☒	☒	☑	☐
	Wales	☑	☑	☑	☐	☐	☑	☑	☒	☑	☐
V H F   F D	England	☑	☑	☑	☐	☑	☐	☑	☑	☑	☐
	Guernsey	☒	☑	☑	☐	☒	☐	☑	☑	☑	☐
	Isle of Man	☒	☑	☒	☐	☒	☐	☑	☑	☒	☐
	Jersey	☒	☒	☒	☐	☑	☐	☒	☒	☑	☐
	Northern Ireland	☒	☑	☒	☐	☒	☐	☒	☑	☑	☐
	Scotland	☒	☑	☑	☐	☑	☐	☑	☑	☑	☐
	Wales	☑	☑	☑	☐	☑	☐	☑	☑	☑	☐
I L L W	England	☑	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑	☑	☐	☐	☐
	Guernsey	☒	☒	☒	☐	☒	☑	☒	☐	☐	☐
	Isle of Man	☒	☒	☒	☐	☑	☑	☑	☐	☐	☐
	Jersey	☒	☒	☒	☐	☒	☒	☒	☐	☐	☐
	Northern Ireland	☑	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑	☑	☐	☐	☐
	Scotland	☑	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑	☑	☐	☐	☐
	Wales	☑	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑	☑	☐	☐	☐
R o t A	England	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☐
	Guernsey	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☐
	Isle of Man	☒	☒	☑	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☐
	Jersey	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☒	☐
	Northern Ireland	☒	☒	☒	☒	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☐
	Scotland	☒	☑	☑	☒	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☐
	Wales	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☐
I n   Y e a r	England	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑
	Guernsey	☒	☑	☑	☒	☒	☑	☑	☑	☑	☒
	Isle of Man	☒	☑	☑	☒	☑	☑	☑	☑	☒	☑
	Jersey	☒	☑	☒	☒	☑	☒	☒	☒	☑	☒
	Northern Ireland	☑	☑	☑	☒	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑
	Scotland	☑	☑	☑	☒	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑
	Wales	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑