The first event of the year with LEFARS was Airfield on the Air (AOTA) and we activated Stapleford Airfield close to the M11 and M25 near London. The weather had been wet for some days before the activation, so we knew it was likely to be muddy.
LEFARS have access to a radio caravan, purchased by some of its members to use as a radio shack on field days, and this comes in especially useful in the cold mornings and evenings of April.
The caravan is ideal, with tea and coffee and the odd sweet treat.
The operators did very well, working close to 300 QSO in total, mostly on 7 MHz. Computer logging and a headset and footswitch were deployed on Sunday!
Packing away was always going to be a challenge, the field was very muddy and the caravan needed some persuasion to liberate itself from the mud.
First, we needed to unstick the 4×4 Landrover before any rescue could begin.
Excellent report Dave. There’s more info of the LEFARS AOTA activation on the LEFARS website with my report for GB2STA, including details of AOTA stations worked, some stats and more photos. URL is https://www.lefars.org.uk/2023/04/gb2sta-airfields-on-the-air-1-2-april-2023/