Seen on Southgate Amateur Radio News

Australia’s WIA News report that the RSGB’s Commonwealth Contest is one of the oldest radio contests in existence, having been first run back in 1931 when it was known as “British Empire Radio Week” and lasted for six days!

All those countries that were part of the British Empire – including
Australia, of course – were invited to participate. While the sun set several decades ago on the empire, strong ties still exist between the countries that once were part of it and the contest still exists, but in a much shorter format.

British Empire Radio Week metamorphosed into the 24-hour British Empire Radio Union or BERU (pronounced berroo) contest in 1935, with the objective of linking all those having an interest in the amateur radio within the empire.

Then in 1976, BERU morphed into the Commonwealth Contest.

This year the contest is 82 years old and takes place on 9th – 10th March 2019, from 10:00 to 10:00 UTC. All operation is on CW and you can find the rules at the RSGB HF contest site
https://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/rules/2019/rberu.shtml

As some will be aware, these days the Commonwealth Contest has a
team section – and Australia is the current commonwealth champion,
with our two five-person teams finishing first and third respectively
in 2018.

The team contest started in 2007, where the teams taking part reflecting those that took part in the 2007 Cricket World Cup.

The stations that form the two Australian teams taking place in 2019
are: Kevin VK6LW, John VK4CT, Barry VK2BJ, Steve VK6VZ, Allan VK2GR,
Alan VK7BO, Alan VK4SN, Patrick VK2PN, Steve VK3JA and Brian VK3MI.

In addition we should have six Wireless Institute Australia headquarters stations supporting us, consisting of VK2WIA, VK3WIA, VK4WIA, VK5WIA, VK6WIA and VK7WIA. Many thanks to Tommy VK2IR, Keith VK4TT, Grant VK5GR, Peter VK6RZ and Martin VK7GN who have volunteered to help by operating the HQ stations for as long as they can.

In order to make the best possible score it is important for each member of the Australian squad to work as many “bonus stations” as possible. Each Australian state counts as a separate call area on each band, and the first three contacts made with each Australian state other than their own on each band each earns a vital twenty bonus points, so please join in and work the Ausssie Team!

For those who would like to enter, free software logging program called SD, written by Paul EI5DI can be used.
This runs under Windows and can be downloaded from:
http://www.ei5di.com/

Hope to see you in Commonwealth Contest 2019.

Steve Ireland VK6VZ
Australian team coordinator