Sunday February 9th 2014 saw the first occasion when the Southport RAYNET Emergency Service used GB3OA exclusively. This was for an important safety and emergency exercise during the Mad Dog 10km run to test the use of the repeater when used in a real emergency when operators would be stationed in various areas of Southport.
The trial worked 100% and Southport RAYNET Group Controller Stuart G3OCR, at the end of the exercise commented over OA how well the repeater had handled the traffic and thanked normal users from refraining to use the repeater during the exercise.
According to the Shoutcast stream logs there were a number of listeners worldwide, including Dutch SWL Paul PE7B who sent in an admirable report on all RAYNET stations using the repeater, and commented “from the comfort of my warm and quiet living room over here in Holland”.