Hi all,

First thanks for being invited to the five member group.

I’ve already read the reports of few participants. Yes the condx were
not as good as last year. However still not too much to complain about.
It was fun.
Here is my entry:

Band QSOs Pts Cty Sec
3.5 13 325 13 0
7 66 1090 35 3
14 210 2060 50 1
21 52 1020 36 2
28 8 200 8 0
Total 349 4695 142 6
Score: 4,695
1 Mult = 2.4 Q’s

Please notice the 8 entries on 10 m. Very pleasant surprise. Best part
was the 20 m run to G-land close to 100 QSOs in one hour – big buzz. The
pain was the Sunday part where I’ve scored only five (yes 5) in a whole
hour…. Bonus: had one ATN (all times new county)

Steve’s idea of meeting on 80 m was brilliant.

Comparing the last year:
2015 2016
score 4,870 4,695
QSOs 395 349

Using the same radio + amp, antennae and operator, I can assume it may
be accounted for the declining conditions.
There was a spanner in the works: I have eaten supermarket prepackaged
green salad (there was a scare on the media about a week ago or so) day
earlier with the predictable consequences. Had to then leave the
contesting seat often and in a hurry.

73 to all
Patrick VK2PN

Hi All,well done considering the poor conditions.  Only 10mtr contacts I got were fromVK2’s.  I couldn’t even hear VK7BO on 10.
40 mtrsopened at 4pm local here, so I had a great run into G for about 2 hours..stillit was slow going.Long path on 14 went well also on Sunday night.Great to see my beverages pulling is stations I wouldnormally miss. There were much less HQ stations contacted this year also.
I had a big day Saturday after 3 hours sleep Fridaynight, so I hit the hay at midnight and set the alarm for 3am…
damn, sleptright through it and woke at 6am, then at 11am I had visitors turn up and lost2 hours there.  So managed 13 of the 24hours on air. Band     QSOs     Pts Cty   Sec         3.5      17    405   16    0           7    113    1505   45   2          14     161   1765   46    2          21      55   1155   42    2          28       4    100    4    0       Total     350   4930  153    6              Score :4,930 Best 73AlanVK4SN

Nick,

I’d like to add a bit more to my comment about the Commonwealth Contest
“fading fast”.

You say:

“I certainly wouldn�t write off the Commonwealth Contest and I don�t
think it is accurate to say that the contest is �fading fast�. Of the
�HF Championship� contests, this is the most healthy.”

My reasons for saying that are:

1. Band conditions will deteriorate as the sunspot numbers fall to a
minimum. This means 10m and 15m will probably get even worse for some
years to come. Therefore less opportunity to work the Commonwealth
stations that are active.

2. The number of people who genuinely enjoy the challenge of the
Commonwealth Contest is reducing year-on-year as more of us become
Silent Keys. I can think of several BERU stalwarts who sadly are no
longer with us. How many newly licensed amateurs are taking part in the
Commonwealth Contest? I’d suggest not too many.

3. Jim GM0NAI makes the point that for the last 30 minutes of the
contest this year, he was CQing and trying to S&P without finding a
single new station to work. I think that makes my point to some extent.
Those people, like me, who decided to give the CC a proper try out this
year are unlikely to bother to come back if there’s nobody to work.

I understand perfectly Roger SXW’s comments about the Commonwealth
Contest and I know it isn’t a rate contest. He’s right to say: “There
are literally hundreds of contests � we each pick & choose.” However,
what might happen is that more of us might choose *not* to enter the
Commonwealth Contest unless activity levels improve and we’re not bored
out of our minds.

In conclusion, I applaud your combined efforts with Bob PJT and Peter
LET to improve the CC by having HQ stations in all seven UK DXCC
countries. That will certainly help a little bit. So would activity from
places like 6Y, 8P, J6, V4, VP2* , etc. that have active resident
amateurs. There wasn’t much enthusiasm though, unlike in some previous
years. Allowing UK to work UK for reduced points as per Jim NAI’s
suggestion would also help. Making the contest Mixed Mode might also be
another way to attract new entrants.

On the other hand, if you say that the Commonwealth Contest is the most
healthy of the HF Championship Contests, then clearly everything is fine?

Final, final. Thanks for adding the Assisted category in the CC. Much
appreciated.

73

Steve G3VMW / M2X

That image is vastly preferable to mine: Alan, Bob, Nigel sitting in shorts, bare top, dripping sweat!

Tnx for your efforts this weekend, Graham. You were one of my only two 10m QSOs and the only 5-bander. Course, being only 50 miles away did help!

A fun weekend here, just dropping when I felt like it – 100 QSOs, with 100 watts. QRP would have been too much like masochism with such poor condx!

Roll on BERU 2017, a great weekend of DXing.
73 de Roger/G3SXW.

As noted by everyone very tough conditions this year.

Didn’t have my 2nd radio available so was SO1R. The 2nd radio normally
distracts me from how slow the 1st radio is!

A couple of extra bonus QSOs to be added for ZL/ stations that WinTest
didn’t score.

I had multiple G stations call as well as the usual non BERU countries.

As Steve mentioned we need to give this contest an injection of activity
somehow.

It is not good use of band space, operator time or brownie points from the
YL.

CQing without answer for several minutes then telling non BERU stations you
can’t work them looks bad.

We need to clarify in the rules the 80m band limits. I feel it is wrong to
not comply with the contest preferred limits.

It seems the only people getting reasonable numbers are not in the UK in a
contest run by the UK?

Contest : RSGB Commonwealth Contest

Callsign : GM0NAI

Mode : CW

Category : Single Operator (SO)

Overlay : —

Band(s) : All bands (AB)

Class : High Power (HP)

Zone/State/… :

Locator : IO77UO

Operating time : 11h21

BAND QSO DUP DXC HQ POINTS BONUS AVG

——————————————–

80 13 1 7 1 65 220 21.92

40 65 0 25 5 325 1000 20.38

20 111 2 30 5 545 1380 17.34

15 43 0 23 4 215 760 22.67

10 3 0 3 0 15 60 25.00

——————————————–

TOTAL 235 3 88 15 1165 3420 19.51

============================================

TOTAL SCORE : 4 585

Thanks for all the Qs and to all the travellers.

73

Jim

GM0NAI

My intention was to operate for the full 24 hours, but I found activity
so low that the 11.5 hours I actually did operate seemed like very hard
work. By around 22:00z, and after about 10.5 hours operating, there
seemed very little left to work. Instead, I made the decision to enter
the 12 hour category and to get some sleep. Having set the alarm for
04:30z, I had hoped that 80m and 40m might be productive. Sadly, not so.
The Caribbean stations were loud, but the VEs and ZLs weren’t.
Conditions were truly awful and sadly, like the British Empire, I think
this contest is fading fast.

I should declare that I’ve never been a great advocate of the
Commonwealth Contest, which I know has a lot of traditional support. For
my liking, it is just too S L O W and needs an injection of activity.
For example, let UK work UK, or even open it up to all comers. Sacrilege
I know to the purists. My sincere admiration goes out to those who
endured the full 24 hours of this contest.

That said, there were some highlights. Not least working NFD colleague
Mark G4RCD, who was operating under great stress as A25MC with the half
the world calling, but not listening to him asking for “BERU only”. It
was amusing to hear PS8BR calling “CQ BERU” several times on Saturday. I
don’t think Brazil is part of the Commonwealth, but his enterprise was
to be congratulated. I got an email from Alan G3XAQ operating as 5X1XA
on Saturday evening with the title “Boring” and despite working him on
four bands, I think he was struggling a bit too. The VE6 and VE7s were
loud on 20m on Saturday afternoon and I was very pleased to get a call
from a rather weak and watery VE7BQO/VY1. The last QSO was 8P9RY on 80m,
but he wasn’t in the contest and I fear like 3B8CF worked on 40m, he
will not count.

40m was in good shape late afternoon on Saturday and there were some big
signals from VK and ZL. 9M6XRO was actually S9 on my S-Meter at 16:49z
on 40m. The Indian stations like AT1HQ struggled a bit with my M2X
contest call, but in general I found that most people have now got used
to the UK SCCs and they provide a useful advantage in pile-ups. Brian
C4Z and Don 5B4AGQ were the only active Cyprus stations I worked and I
missed the big signals from Bob 5B4AGN. 10m was pretty grim here and 15m
closed very early on Saturday.

N1MM+ logger driving a Microham micro Keyer II worked perfectly here
without problem in SO2V mode with my FT5K radio. I used a cluster RBN
feed to populate the bandmaps in N1MM+ and the BERU.cty file as per Vic
G4BYG’s recommendation. It was handy just to have only Commonwealth
multipliers shown in the bandmap with this arrangement. I dunno whether
N1MM+ scores the contest correctly, but here are my numbers.

Single Op (Assisted) 12 Hours:

Band QSOs Pts Cty Sec
3.5 14 350 13 1
7 42 1030 37 4
14 102 2005 68 6
21 29 725 27 2
28 3 75 2 1
Total 190 4185 147 14

Score : 4,185

Yaesu FT5K, Acom 2000A, 130ft Doublet 80/40, Hexbeam 20/15/10

I had only one gentleman suggest I do something ending in “off” and that
was on the low end of 80m on an otherwise virtually deserted band. He
was not a BERU fan apparently. Thanks to the intrepid travellers for all
the QSOs and to everyone else who took part in what was a very
good-natured contest.

73

—
Steve G3VMW / M2X