ROTA 2024

Railways on the Air

Saturday 29th & Sunday 29th September 2024

Nunsfield House activated once again from the Nottingham Transport Heritage Centre the home of Great Central Railway (Nottingham) located at Ruddington.

Early start to a bright sunny morning, gaining access to the site at around 8:45. Derry (2E0RRF), Stefan M0OSL, Ian (G8VXG) and Connor (2E0EIY) had made light work on setting up the pop up gazebo, the mast for the collinear and the centre pulley for the trapped dipole.

Equipment were next set up, Yaesu FT-991A used for HF, and the Icom 7100 for 2m operation and off course the most important part of any activation was the brewing facilities. It wasn't too long before our Chairman Mick (G8EHX) arrived with along with Andrew (2E0IQZ) who lives in the same town. Once we had finished setting up it was soon realised just how cold it were so with the most important hand warmers teas and coffees in hand we were soon operating from 10 A.M. tracking down other active ROTA stations on the 40m band. FT8 operating whilst food breaks commenced for an hour or so. We were soon joined by David (G0BIE) club member to give us morale support and take tour the site. Before long the day had ran out and soon time to pack down for the evening.

Sunday started out being sunny but soon became slightly overcast but a little warmer not by much mind, with a little less to setup than the previous day we were back on air.

We had the same crew on the Sunday with a slight line-up change, Paul (G1SGZ) had replace Ian (G8VXG). We still needed a few more ROTA stations in log to secure the award certificate. A leisurely approach to Sunday's operating and operators changing seats we had soon secured 10+. In the afternoon Ian (G8VXG) and his good lady paid us a visit to see how the event panning out.

Although we only logged 91 contacts for the entire weekend it was thoroughly enjoyed by all and being the final outing of our eventing season it always a good time chat about how the events had gone throughout the year. With special thanks once again to organisers of ROTA and our hosts Nottingham Transport Heritage Centre, we look forward to 2025 season.