Monthly Archives: March 2019

BERU, Contest rules are they really fair ?

11 Monday Mar 2019

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Hi Bob,

I enjoyed the contest very much.  Before the contest I read through the rules and didn't quite get them,  and I have studied them again since completing the contest and having uploaded my log.  I thought I’d give you the opportunity to read this first.

The Rules as published actually disadvantage Low Power - 100W stations with Yagi's and wire dipoles.  

Every other group has ‘no antenna restrictions’ except LP, it is not fair;

(a) and (b) HP with no antenna restrictions
(c) Worldwide Remote no antenna restrictions
(f) and (g) QRP with no antenna restrictions
(h Multi-op's with no antenna restrictions
(i) HQ stations with no antenna restrictions

The group missing here, in order to have a level playing field, is LP with no antenna restrictions.

By all means keep (d) and (e) Restricted, Single Op 100W - single element antennas, this suits dxpeditions like 3B8XF etc.  just like in IOTA.

As I say everyone has a 'no antenna restriction' apart from 100W/LP  stations like me, and it doesn't make sense and there is no logical reason.

I run 100W and I have a Hexbeam at 38ft. I would describe the hexbeam as modest, (i.e. it is not a Force 12 C31XR)  but it does have 2 wire elements.  So instead of entering LP with no antenna restrictions,  I can’t enter restricted 100W as I have 2 elements so I have had to enter Open, Single Operator, Unassisted, 24 hour  HP with no antenna restrictions. This is ridiculous as I am up against everyone running maximum power with antenna farms. It's no coincidence that VY2ZM is top of my section.

I think in the past there may have been a LP with no antenna restrictions and it got confused with the restricted 100W and maybe got accidentally  deleted.

This is such a shame as it makes the competition inherently unfair.  It could be fixed before the log upload deadline giving everyone who is compromised like me the chance to go into the LP with no antenna restrictions,  12hr or 24hr, unassisted or assisted. 

Oddly enough 3830 Contest site does feature a LP section.  

I have suggestion below;

Insert following;
(J)Open, Single Operator, Unassisted – 12-Hour or 24-Hour – 100W maximum, no antenna restrictions.
(k) Open, Single Operator, Assisted – 12-Hour or 24-Hour – 100W maximum, no antenna restrictions.
 
Existing
(a) Open, Single Operator, Unassisted - 12-hour or 24-hour - Maximum legal power - no antenna restrictions.
(b) Open, Single Operator, Assisted - 12-hour or 24-hour - Maximum legal power - no antenna restrictions.
(c) Open, World-wide remote activation of a Commonwealth Call area, Single or multi-operator.  Assisted - 12-hour or 24-hour - Maximum legal power - no antenna restrictions.
(d) Restricted, Single Operator, Unassisted - 12-hour or 24-hour - 100W maximum - single element antennas.
(e) Restricted, Single Operator, Assisted - 12-hour or 24-hour - 100W maximum - single element antennas.
(f) QRP, Single Operator, Unassisted - 24 hour only - 5W maximum - no antenna restrictions.
(g) QRP, Single Operator, Assisted - 24 hour only - 5W maximum - no antenna restrictions.
(h) Multi-operator - Assisted - 24 hour only - Maximum legal power - no antenna restrictions.
(i) HQ stations - Multi-operator - Assisted - 24 hour only - Maximum legal power - no antenna restrictions.

Thanks for all you do towards this great contest. 

73 Rich GW4BVJ/MW6M

G3P BERU Report – 12 hour assisted

11 Monday Mar 2019

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G3P BERU Report – 12 hour assisted
From: Mike Chamberlain
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 09:48:38 GMT

I decided on a 12 hour entry, the question being which 12. I thought I could miss the first 2 hours, take an hour for supper sometime after sunset, finish at midnight, leaving an hour on Sunday morning at sunrise for some real DX on 80/40. I ended up starting early, around 11:15 as 15m had activity and I suspected it was about to close. In the end I took 5 rest periods resulting in me having 2.5 hours for Sunday morning.  One mistake I made was a QSO with Alan 5B4AHJ on 40m after 59 minutes into a 60 minute rest period, which I had to X-QSO in the log and then rework Alan a few minutes later – sorry for the dupe and I hope the adjudication software doesn’t penalise me – N1MM gets it wrong.

Not a lot to add to the commentary of others about conditions – 40m was the band for me. The VU2 stations were always weak and unworkable anywhere, one QSO (40m) with 9V1 and no 9M there was a big gap looking North- East until VK/ZL, which I found quite plentiful on 40m. The 9H, ZB2 and 5B4 activity from the Mediterranean helped, as did the UK HQ stations, but my only clean sweep there was G6XX, but managed the rest on the lower 3 bands.

The equipment was: FT2000, ACOM 1k amplifier, Nested dipoles as 12m for 40, 20, 15 & 10m and a 40m long inverted L at 12m height for 80m. N1MM+ used for logging.

QSO count was 190, but included 5 dupes. Some non BERU callers, to whom I just gave a report and moved on.

Where would we be without all of those VE3s?

Many thanks to all who participated, especially those who travelled and manned the HQ stations.

Mike /G3WPH/G3P

GM4YXI SOU HP 12hr

11 Monday Mar 2019

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Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 09:40:24 GMT
Hi all,

BERU was not really in my contesting plans for anything more than a casual bit of operating. ‘Domestic harmony’ was on the agenda since I have been doing quite a lot of contesting lately plus spending an awful lot of hours outside trying to sort out the antennas. Consequently, I was on a promise to put some hours in the garden. I made about 5 QSOs on 15m around 1130 and did an hour and a bit on 20m from 1300ish. The latter produced a few VK and I guess that’s where the ‘problem’ started. While outside planting trees, a plan evolved. I got back on 20m again a bit before 1700 but a tactical retreat was required at 1800 for eats. Back an hour later and by then, I was up for the 12 hour section.

WinTest does not tell you (unless it is another feature I don’t know about – there seem to be lots) how long you have been QRV apart from the SUM file – and even then, I think it assumes a 10min gap is QRT – NOT in BERU!! Some arithmetic told me I should probably QRT at midnight and come back on an hour before SR, and finish at 0930. So I did. Maybe this was a mistake but the 12 hour section is an interesting challenge and I was not really prepared for it, since I would probably have tried to find another hour Sat afternoon and go past midnight if I had planned this.

If it was not for our friends in VE3, this would be a grim affair. A few VKs were very welcome, but I did better on 40m than 20m into Oz, probably due to my timing and the utter failure of virtually any 20m long path on Sunday morning – only a couple of VK4. I did work a good number of ZLs, however, but only by beaming due south, they were inaudible on the usual 230-240 heading – very odd. Virtually all the QSOs on 15m were a scrape and I looked on 10m for as many seconds once. My lack of tactical preparedness meant I never asked any of the UK HQ stations to try 15 or 10m and I only heard Chris WOJ on 15m. 80m felt like it was shaping up well enough when I got there, timing my QSY for VK6 sunrise and was glad to get VK6LW who had a great signal. Judging by what I have read, I should have gone there earlier to see what was happening. The Canadian contingent built up nicely so my midnight QRT may have cost since it was pretty dire in that direction on Sunday morning on 80m and especially 40m. The ZLs were coming in well on 80m well after my SR and the VK/ZL path on 40m was pretty good though not a lot of volume unfortunately. I missed V31 on 40 and 80m, ZF2CA was extremely loud on 80m, not a single ZS in the log.

Really enjoyable contest in the end. I think the slow pace is easier to deal with because it is what you expect. I was getting grumpy in ARRL when the rate was double BERU standard. ‘Almost’ every call feels like nice DX and a success, and the openings to be caught (assuming brain is in gear!!) add interest. It is just a shame that support for the contest from some parts seems so poor. Don’t suppose that is likely to change.

73 Keith GM4YXI

SOU HP 12hr Operating time  : 10h45…………. Actually, nearer 12hr I think.

BERU 2019 – V31GX

11 Monday Mar 2019

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From: Iain g4sgx
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 23:04:32 GMT

Hello.

This year I came back to beautiful Belize for the third year running using the V31GX call.

Normally on my Beru trips I go restricted from the beach and carry all my stuff as extra luggage but this year due to sunspot conditions decided to splash out on a ‘renta-shack’ and guest lodge owned by a lovely German couple V31DL and his wife Monika, which also doubles as the Belize amateur radio club HQ. (V31HQ). They also disproved the fallacy that Germans have no sense of humour. Its a really nice place that is fully equipped and they made me very welcome, even brought breakfast to me up to the shack in the morning! I would heartily recommend it here if anyone fancies some radio fun in beautiful surroundings whilst on holiday in the Caribbean

It had to get used to the Icom7800 and the German keyboard (Z&Y were swapped) in the shack but that didn’t take too long.

Antennas were a 3 ele on a 60 foot mast for 10,15 and 20 and dipoles for 40 & 80. Alas the 40M dipole never really worked as it had developed a fault after a thunderstorm recently so had to use a low dipole @ 7M and I swapped about different antennas for the Rx, as it was really noisy otherwise. The amp was some sort of black box under the table with a desktop control box, Icom I presume like all the other equipment.

I arrived only a day before the contest as I had no need to erect antennas etc. but due to a hectic few days at work prior to leaving I was ‘cream crackered’ to say the least when I arrived after the long flight, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!

The few hours before the contest, I had to set-up N1MM to read the CAT and key the rig (via a microham Mk2) which took an hour or two to work out as I never used them before and they are mostly SSB users here.

It started well. As ever here started on 80M for first ½ hour then moved upwards, I had the advantage of old logs to analyse and previous operating plans with openings all marked out in time order. No QSO’s on 10M at all despite QSY’ing when requested to check out. I think only southerly paths would have have had any chance on 10m, I worked VP8NO several times, should have tried as he was a good signal here.

I now know why Colin, ZF2CA camps out on 15M for a lot of the time, fairly good path to VE and especially VK/ZL later in the day from here when running a bit of power and good antennas. The ZL’s were a stonking signal. It was hard to gauge relative conditions from last year due to differing power and antennas but 40M & 80M was hard work with much ESP going on. Nasty QSB with signals going from nothing to good readability every few seconds, many repeats needed. Some 40wpm+ VE’s who only sent reports once weren’t making it easy in such conditions.

One of my QSO’s with Bob, G3PJT, was a real exercise in perseverance, it must have taken about 5 minutes due to the bad timing of the QSB, sometimes it happens like that, just bad luck but we got there in the end.

Running QRO and good antennas was a new thing for me, I quickly learnt that instead of asking for repeats it was quicker to send what s/n I thought I had with a ? at the end and listen for the ‘R’ or ‘CFM’, as they mostly heard me better than I heard them.

Non Beru callers were only an annoyance a few times, in fact they were a relief during the quiet times of which there were a few.

I was impressed with the noise filter on the IC-7800, much easier to use than the K3 version and I would say more effective, although I think my K3 with a roofing filter had better audio and selectivity in contest conditions..

Alas tiredness set in early (my usual issue, that’s why I prefer to operate as a team in long contests) so only operated for 14 hours, (see earlier excuse!), so I missed out on the 80M opening to UK Sunday morning. Should have stuck to 12hrs to be competitive. Just a shame to let the team down but then its all for fun.

All in all very enjoyable though and a real pleasure to use such a well equipped station for a change.

Iain G4SGX/V31GX

G4PIQ BERU Report – 12 hour Unassisted

11 Monday Mar 2019

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From: Andy Cook, G4PIQ
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 22:14:59 GMT

Once again, I entered this in the Single Op, Un-Assisted, Domestic Harmony section which meant I operated as much time as I could while balancing it with everything that needed to be done around the family this weekend. That meant that, although my official on-time is 10h 28 mins (with minimum of 1 hour gaps), my actual operating time was 9h 10 min. Sadly I had to QRT at 2300 on Saturday night which was too early to have made the most of 40m and 80m.

 

I operated from my home station which is relatively limited with dipoles in a tree and an old battered TET tri-bander on a 55ft pole mast. The tri-bander has developed a nasty intermittent (I think around the phasing lines) where the front-to-back can go into reverse, and signals can go up and down by 15dB very rapidly. That showed itself a lot this weekend, and RBN data shows that I was really weak on 20m – at least 10dB down on Don, G3BJ. I need to find the time to drop the pole and fix that – but actually I really need to get a tower in the ground.

 

I thought conditions on 40m sounded pretty good – I was amazed at the number of ZL stations I worked there. 80 also didn’t seem too bad – 3 x VK in the evening and 4 x ZL at our sunrise was nice with just the dipole. 20 on the other hand seemed poor – no VE6 or VE7 on Saturday, and very little from VK/ZL on Sunday morning – though I was making breakfast for the family at peak time. On 15 – just a handful worked, and on 10m – only UK HQ stations. Many thanks to the HQ stations for the activity and the moves. I got a full house with G6XX, GM6XX, GM3DR and GB5CC, but missed GI6XX and GW6XX on 15 and 10. Thanks to Stewart for the try on 15 – but NIL here.

 

Of course – many thanks to all the travellers for their hard work in making it more fun for all of us.

 

BAND   QSO DUP DXC  HQ  POINTS BONUS   AVG

——————————————–

80    33   0  16   7     165   560 21.97

40    90   1  23  11     450  1160 17.89

20    64   2  25   8     320   920 19.38

15    12   0   7   4      60   240 25.00

10     4   0   0   4      20    80 25.00

——————————————–

TOTAL   203   3  71  34    1015  2960 19.58

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

TOTAL SCORE : 3 975

 

This is the score as reported by Win-Test. Chris, WOJ – I checked the bonuses manually – and this looks pretty much right to me although the software seems to mark up to 5 QSOs from a call area as a bonus – the score seems to correctly only include 3.

 

Rig : 2 x K3 + Ten Tec Titan + Alpha 87A

Ant : 80 / 40 – Inv-V Dipoles @ 18m

HF : Broken 4el Tri-bander @ 17m

K9AY

 

73

 

Andy, G4PIQ

BERU 2019 -VY2/G3VYI

11 Monday Mar 2019

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From: Mike Franklin
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 21:15:54 GMT

Hi all from snowy Prince Edward Island, -5c  today, its  warmed up! The sea is frozen here!
 First  visit to a superstation  (at the VY2TT DX lodge here) so  I  tried  to do it  justice, but struggled  at  times of  course .The rig is 2 K3’s , amps, 80m 4sq, 40m 4 ele at 90 feet, 3 stack 20m 6 ele,separately rotatable, 3 stack 15m all rotatable, 6/6/4, 10m 2  8  ele,Try  working out a plan for pointing that  lot  in BERU!   Luckily one  K3 of  two here was incommunicado with  the pc so I  didnt  try SO2R as well or might have gone ( more ) bonkers.
Apologies for any  tangles on 20m  in the pileup on saturday  morning, I  was using the shack Writelog, not  my  thing,  so got stuck  occasionally.
Conditions seemed ok  but noisy here on sunday on 80m , then not much new here after 0900zZip on 10m, a few on 15m, including G.I finished  at 0915 so nearly lasted 24 hours. Writelog would not mark any  score for  QSOs with GM or MM prefixes, or at least display the score, must  want UDI  !
I  ended up  with 790 QSO s, and 7000 points ish, may be that total is  missing  the 50 or  so GM/MM prefix  calls.
It  was great to work  the travellers on  most  bands, and lots of OT callers ; BERU is  the only contest when everyone waits  for lots of  retries, with no aggro.I  got one negative comment as I speeded up  the599 and  / in my  call , I hope it didnt sound  too horrible, maybe not do  that again?
Please post good pictures and reports on  the RSGB log site and BERU  site
Mike VY2/G3VYI

GW6XX Beru

11 Monday Mar 2019

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From: Stewart gw0etf
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 20:59:22 GMT
Reassuring to read that others found conditions difficult in the contest – with my collection dipoles and wire verticals I certainly struggled. Sorry to hear Vic G4BYG’s horror story with his antennas; it was windy here but not excessive.

A couple of points to comment on from reading the posts….

  • Using the HQ call I felt a responsibility for handing out points to UK stations; around 50% of my contacts were with home calls. I remember a discussion last(?) year about DX sections and always aimed to park myself a fraction above the lower 10kHz but not in it. I heard someone moaning to Nigel about him being only 5kHz above the bottom of the band but can’t see the problem as he’s true dx in 3B8. Perhaps it’s because we’re contesting there…?
  • I found the bands difficult. The signals on 40m in particular were so often weak and buried in noise. This gave the sound of the cw a fuzzy quality which made them virtually impossible to decode at higher speeds. Most seemed to appreciate this but I did hear one VE being asked over and over for his serial which he insisted on sending repeatedly at around 30wpm! Same thing occurs with JA signals with echo, just need to slow down.
  • An unidentified op informed me on Saturday evening that I had bad key clicks. While I momentarily paused to have a quick check that I wasn’t on the wrong antenna or doing something silly someone else jumped in with ‘..nil hr..’ I’d just worked Steve at GW9J so shot an email off to him to ask if he’d noticed anything and he replied with a couple of screen shots of my signals off his Anan display which looked fine. Thanks Steve..!

As expected the graveyard hours were really grim but this year I had some entertainment to keep me awake in the shape of the earlier Scotland – Wales rugby that I had to sacrifice in the interest of contesting. I-Player on the second monitor worked a treat while CQing aimlessly – in the 100 minutes the playback was running I probably worked the same number of QSOs as tries I saw scored.

73,

Stewart, GW0ETF @ GW6XX

BERU 2019 – GM3DR

11 Monday Mar 2019

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From: Chris GM3WOJ
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 20:05:48 GMT

Hello UKHF Contesters

The Jack Hum G5UM callbook from circa 1930 contains an entry – ‘GM3DR – RSGB Highland Region’. This callsign has now been reallocated to the RSGB Contest Club, so it seemed appropriate to give GM3DR its first airing in possibly 89 years from here in Highland Region, in a contest which dates from the same era.

I found the contest a bit of a struggle for differing reasons. My station is being completely renovated, from the ground up (literally – I am digging a big hole outside the shack window for a new improved earth system) After about 3 hours my Alpha 91B amp died – a fault which I thought I had fixed about two months ago, but obviously not. It’s a tricky fault – standing current = OK, but as soon as the RF drive exceeds the Electronic Bias Switching threshold, the plate current rockets up and it trips with an overcurrent fault. I suspect the negative bias voltage is disappearing completely when the EBS threshold is exceeded (or a duff valve / oscillation) but I’ll find out soon.

This meant that GM3DR was then on reduced power on all but 20m, which was especially frustrating on 15m and 10m where UK stations are usually workable on scatter. A number of UK stations refused to work GM3DR when I called them – they did not realise they were losing Bonus points 🙁

Finished with 484 QSOs, but no idea of the final score. I am a fan of WinTest logging software, but it performs very badly for BERU – quite a few things just don’t work properly.

Thanks for all the QSOs. A special thanks to those who travel to make BERU more interesting for everyone.

73 Chris GM3WOJ / GM3DR

BERU 2019 VK4SN

11 Monday Mar 2019

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From: Alan VK4SN
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 03:54:04 GMT

Hi Guys,

Condx definitely better this year especially on lower bands I thought.
I added another 40 radials to my hytower I use on 7Mhz and hopefully that made a difference.
Still reckon some use post-it notes to log as one station worked me 3 times in an hour on
the same band. hi hi. 10 dupes total for the contest.

I struggled on 20m for a good run due to poor rx here, even on the beverage every contact
was AGN AGN.! I’m sure my neighbours new solar panels are to blame. 15m was minimal and
nothing on 10m. 80m was good as was 40m.

This year I followed the graphs of propagation to UK and Caribbean and was pleased I stayed
up thru 1500 to 2100hrs as I did have the best runs during that period.

Band QSOs Pts Cty Sec Pt/Q
3.5 49 845 30 3 17.2
7 178 2070 53 8 11.6
14 56 1100 37 6 19.6
21 8 200 6 2 25.0
Total 291 4215 126 19 14.5

Score : 4,215
73
ALAN
VK4SN