Railways On the Air 2026
Over the weekend of 26 and 27 September, Grampian Hilltoppers set up a special amateur radio station at Dufftown station, on the Keith and Dufftown Railway, for Railways on the Air. This is a national event, held each year on the weekend closest to 27 September, when radio clubs operate from railways and railway museums and try to speak to one another. Our station used the call sign GB2KDR, issued for the Keith and Dufftown Railway. Peter (MM9SQL), Charlie (GM1TGY) and Phin (GM6PLG) operated.
We were on the air from just after 09:20 in the morning until about 5:30 p.m. on both days. In that time we made 408 contacts with 390 different stations, in 48 countries. Most were in Europe, with Germany, European Russia, Italy, Poland, France and England the busiest. The furthest reached Indonesia, Thailand and Japan, and we also worked India and the eastern side of the United States and Canada. The two maps show where those contacts were.
Conditions were on the poor side, and the solar figures agree. There was no magnetic storm while we were operating, but the Sun itself was only modestly active. The solar radio flux, a standard measure of how busy the Sun is for radio, was 101 on Saturday and 97 on Sunday, with sunspot counts of 88 and 67. That is a quiet patch rather than a busy one. It showed on the bands. Nearly all the long-distance contacts were on 20 metres, one of the shortwave bands that travels well in daylight, and nearly all of those were digital contacts, where the computer completes the exchange from a signal too weak to follow by voice. We had about an hour on 15 metres on Saturday afternoon, mostly into Europe. We made no contacts on the higher bands.
The railway-to-railway contacts were different. Those were ordinary spoken conversations, on 40 metres, using a simple wire aerial cut for that band. A second aerial, a Comet dipole covering 40 metres down to 10 metres, carried the longer-distance work.
We spoke to 21 other stations taking part this year.
On Saturday: Ashton Court Miniature Railway, the Lincolnshire Wolds Railway, the East Somerset Railway, Kinver Model Engineers, the Downpatrick and County Down Railway, the Somerset and Dorset Railway, and Murrow West Station.
On Sunday: the Royal Victoria Railway, the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway, the Isle of Wight Steam Railway, the Gartell Light Railway, the Audley End Enchanted Railway, Almondell Model Engineering Centre, the Foxfield Light Railway, the Watercress Line, Hythe Pier Railway, the Furness Miniature Railway, St Neots Riverside Miniature Railway, Whitrope Heritage Centre, the Southwold Railway, and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.
We also spoke to the Helston Railway in Cornwall and to the Edinburgh Society of Model Engineers. Both were on the air for the event, but not under the call signs on this year's published list.
Thank you to the Keith and Dufftown Railway for having us at Dufftown station.