Well that was a disaster here.
The contest started well – although conditions were not good. Using SO2R, running on one band and S&P on another, I managed to keep things moving along between 15, 20 and 40 for the first few hours. 15 was poor, although a few QSOs, but a QSY request from a ZF2 to try 15 produced pretty marginal signals on the Saturday afternoon. 40 was unusually active, with VE (including VE7) and VK/ZL available from early on in the contest. 30 minutes before sunset I went to 80m and found a good pile of far-east and oceania DX at good signals – this seemed the peak for this path and short afterwards, the signals were dropping. But in a short period, 16 DX calls from that area were added, including 9M0W. It is a first for me to work 9M0 Spratly on three bands in BERU! I didn’t hear him on 15m.
After the 80m dusk opening, things continued OK, with 40 and 20 providing business and the VE path opening up well. Then disaster struck. I turned the main yagi to work a UK HQ station in Scotland and the it stopped due North and refused to move from there afterwards. I have yet to establish the cause – it will either be mechanical or our furry friends gnawing the cable – I suspect the latter as there are some strange movements on the direction indicator. So I was left with an SO2R station without its main antenna. I pushed on until 22.00 using wires and the Titanex for 40m, and then took a strategic decision to go for a 12 hour entry. Lack of the main beam punched a hole in the SO2R capability and that was what I wanted to deploy in the contest. So I’m afraid BERU is a bust for me this year. As far as it went, it was good fun, and I got the impression that the SO2R and the station generally was working well, until…..
At least until I stopped, the Tesla contest did not seem to be too much of a problem for BERU’ers. On the 3500-3510 window I did hear one shoot-out with one of the HQ stations. The station complaining was making more noise in the window than the contest stations! It’s a pity the complainant had not read the band plan more closely in respect of that segment of the band
So for the record, the 12 hour numbers are:
BAND QSO DUP DXC HQ POINTS BONUS AVG
——————————————–
80 21 0 11 6 105 420 25.00
40 54 0 17 11 270 760 19.07
20 96 0 26 14 480 1160 17.08
15 9 0 6 3 45 180 25.00
10 2 0 0 2 10 40 25.00
——————————————–
TOTAL 182 0 60 36 910 2560 19.07
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TOTAL SCORE : 3 470
2 xFT5k + linear. Titanex V160HD, 3 yagis (2 x 10-20 and 1 x 10-40) Beverages and K9AY. Microham controller and Win-Test.
73 Don, G3BJ