RAYNET Rye Ancient Trails - 13th Sep 2026

13/09/2026 | 2E0YRE - Tony Klinakis Radio Website

Today my job was to relay the start of the race and then relocate to MP131. I managed to get there nice and early, and I enjoyed a smoked salmon and egg lunch at the Whitehouse later on. Good marshalls. I had been checking the weather for days beforehand and all forecasts were preparing me for a good deal of rain, so I didn’t even bother packing my sunglasses in the morning.

The good:

The town crier

He announced the start of the race. I wish I could’ve filmed it. It was my job to relay the start of the run back to control so I was focusing on that. I’m of the opinion that events should be experienced rather than recorded, but now I wish I was recording as well as experiencing. Plenty of people were though, if I find a video I’ll put it up here.

The view

It was the best view on the course. You could see all the way down Rye almost to the finish line, as I kept telling runners (“nearly in sight!”). Just look at it

The weather

A bit of rain at the start but then it became sunny. I was quite happy with that.

The FT-70D

First time using it in anger. Fantastic bit of kit, and finally something I enjoy programming directly from the keypad, rather than going on CHIRP. I packed two batteries but one was plenty.

The bad

The smell

I got used to it after a while, but we were next to a barn and I grew up in a city. Quite a few runners said to us “You guys have the best view” and I got to respond “I’m just here for the smell”. Banger. It became a running joke after a while. A running joke… get it? I’ll shut up.

The frequency change

The repeater went offline after a while (scheduled) and we switched to the fallback simplex. I had the wrong frequency, kept shouting into the void on a freq that nobody monitored, and wondering if I messed up the radio or what.

The weather

The… weather? Yes, the weather. All day Saturday I checked the Met Office app and it kept saying “Rain”. So I prepared for rain. And did we get rain?

A little bit, yes. But not as much as I was expecting. I was expecting as much as I got in the Deal half mar in February of this year. I was expecting an absolute torrent. But no, nothing dramatic. It rained a bit in the morning, I had my umbrella, didn’t even need to put the rain jacket on. And then the sun came out.

And I didn’t have my sunglasses.