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BERU 2019 VK5WIA
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Reports
Monthly Archives: March 2019
BERU 2019 VK2PN
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Reports
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BERU – GW9J – single op assisted high power
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Reports
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G6XX BERU experience
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Reports
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BERU : 3B8XF
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Reports
From: Nigel G3TXF
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 18:19:48 GMT
Hello UK Contesters,
This was the third year running that I’ve operated BERU from Mauritius. It’s a great place to operate from. However, thanks to ever declining HF conditions, my QSO total has decreased each year!
The last twelve hours of BERU this year were a real slog, with appalling propagation. Even with the help of Assisted, unworked stations were very hard to find.
Apologies for my weak signal on 80m. This year I did not have an 80m antenna. For the 20 QSOs I made on 80m, I was force-feeding my 40m vertical. Congratulations to those who copied my serial number correctly first time on 80m. No mean feat with my poor 80m TX antenna!
40m and 20m were the bread-and-butter bands. But as Don G3XTT at C56DF has already commented, the short duration QSB was unbelievably fast. A station would call with a reasonable signal, then almost immediately the signal would dive to zero. Multiple repeats were needed to get the serial numbers through. One or two VE stations were sending too fast and seemed insensitive to the difficult QSB-laden conditions.
There were two short openings to the UK that I caught on 15m. The second was a nice surprise in the very last hour of the contest.
Nothing was worked on 10m. I did try a QSY with my ‘local’ Brian 9J2BO, but even that did not work.
Please put your claimed BERU scores and comments on 3830. That way we can all see them in a wider context.
3B8XF made 492 net QSOs for 5,555 points : 2,455 QSO pts and 3,100 Bonus pts.
80m : 20
40m : 156
20m : 221
15m : 95
10m : 0
73 – Nigel 3B8XF
C56DF BERU
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Reports
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RSGB COMMONWEALTH CONTEST (aka “BERU”) – G3BJ
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Reports
RSGB COMMONWEALTH CONTEST (aka “BERU”) – G3BJ
From: Don Beattie, G3BJ
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 15:16:22 GMT
This is my report on the weekend. I entered the unassisted section – which makes for extra work!
I had hoped that after the poor conditions of last weekend for ARRL SSB, BERU would be better. I suppose we should be grateful for an “A” index of 8 , following last weekend’s 24, but apart from that , the two contests seemed to suffer similar conditions. These manifested as relatively poor LF conditions, moderate conditions on 20, poor on 15 and almost nil on 10m. I felt that this was a weekend where SO2R was likely to be helpful, and so it proved. The contest normally starts with the usual puzzle of “where do I start?” but conditions helped that choice. 20m was the banker band, and so any decision was bound to use 20m as the anchor. I recognised that with the new abundance of HQ stations in the British Isles, getting all the bonus points from them was essential. In the end, I did that, with the exception of GI6XX on 10 and 15m. So initially S&P on 20 and 15, then running on 20 with S&P on 15m and taking bonus stations to other bands was the order of the day. A lot of this contest depends on catching the 40 and 80 LP and SP openings to Asia and Oceania and this year, 40 was in good shape to the Far East and VK/ZL quite early on Saturday afternoon. This raised the spirits, and when 80 contributed quite a few VK on Saturday dusk, motivation took an uptick. The Saturday afternoon was marred by some electrical noise locally on 10 and 15m – I thought from the nearby farm, but a quick trip round there showed nothing in use. So I suspect a powerline fault – perhaps a faulty transformer or insulator. As soon as the sun went in and the air cooled, it stopped. Something to investigate before CW WPX.
The UK traveller stations were there, of course, but strength did not seem up to the usual level. Nigel was there from 3B8XF, but on 80 was not his usual strength when I worked him. Don at C56DF was there too, but not as strong as I had hoped. Peter at VP9I was pretty good strength, but stand-out travellers were Iain at V31GX (big signals on all bands) and Mike at VY2/G3VYI.
Perhaps I was looking the other way at the time, but I found no VE7 on 40 or 80 this year, which is unusual. VE6 and VE5 were in short supply. David, VA7DXX (G3OUF) was very loud on 20m. Congratulations to the UK HQ stations (the “6XX” team, GB5CC and GM3DR) for moving when asked and for good ears. Some of the 10m signals inter-G were ESP. As I said earlier, I missed Rich (GI6XX) on 10 and 15, but otherwise, a clean sweep.
When we got to the overnight session, it got pretty dreary. QSO rates dropped way down, and yet you had to keep up the motivation to catch the odd bonus extra. For distraction I spent a short while calling the 7P8 DXpedition, but by the time I found them, they had propagation to the US and it was pointless. When we got round to dawn, 80m and 40m were noisy – static crashes and band noise, which made copy a little harder than usual on the weaker DX.
Callsign of the weekend must be 5I9/F5PLR – actually HI9, but it had me fooled, as he really was sending 5I9 which would have been a nice bonus!
In passing, a comment about the band below 3510. This is marked in the rules for “DX contacts”. Bob, PJT, says in his website “Commonwealth Contest – A DX contest and DX means long distance and challenging radio contacts”. So I guess I’m a tad unclear about the objective here. I can see it is OK to call a “dx” station there, but under what circumstances can (eg) a UK station initiate activity there? One view might be “if there is propagation and likelihood of DX QSOs”. But how to guarantee that? I’m coming around to the view that perhaps we should mandate a sub-band for BERU to avoid the doubt – but perhaps someone can provide an answer to the “acceptable” usage of 3500-3510. IARU band plan states “priority for intercontinental operation”. Now that means that with the exception of a few European stations (ZB2, 9H) and the G “HQ” stations, all BERU QSOs qualify for this segment. 3510 – 3560 is the “contest preferred” segment. So I’m just a little confused about what is and is not acceptable here. Certainly over the weekend, there was a lot of contest activity below 3510, perhaps encouraged by the Tesla contest occupying 3510+ with quite a few clicky signals!
Anyway, a good weekend of dial spinning, scouring the bands and also a fair amount of F1 pressing.
Congratulations to Chris, G3SJJ, for a great score in the assisted section – it goes to show what I missed hearing! My numbers appended below.
73 – and thanks for all the QSOs
BERU 2019 M7T
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Reports
From: David G3YYD
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 14:00:15 GMT
Start with the stats for my 12 hours SOABHP assisted from 1000 to 2200.
3.5 13
7 65
14 113
21 13
Total 204
And break down by prefix:
| CountryPrefix | Qs |
| 3B8 | 3 |
| 5B | 8 |
| 8P | 1 |
| 9G | 1 |
| 9H | 5 |
| 9J | 3 |
| 9M6 | 1 |
| 9V | 3 |
| C5 | 2 |
| G | 21 |
| V3 | 2 |
| V5 | 3 |
| VE1 | 6 |
| VE2 | 6 |
| VE3 | 57 |
| VE4 | 1 |
| VE5 | 4 |
| VE6 | 4 |
| VE7 | 4 |
| VE9 | 9 |
| VK2 | 9 |
| VK3 | 3 |
| VK4 | 3 |
| VK5 | 1 |
| VK6 | 8 |
| VK7 | 3 |
| VO1 | 5 |
| VO2 | 2 |
| VP9 | 2 |
| VU | 4 |
| VY1 | 2 |
| VY2 | 5 |
| ZB | 1 |
| ZF | 3 |
| ZL1 | 2 |
| ZL2 | 3 |
| ZL3 | 3 |
| ZL4 | 1 |
| Total | 204 |
As you can see VE3 dominates. The G is the HQ stations worked. I did wonder if I could see if I could move some G HQ onto 10m as probably be able to work many of them with the beams pointing at each other and the contest is slow but did not try. HQ guys like to comment for next year? Maybe state in advance when HQs will be on 10m? Or is that against the spirit of the rules?
I put up a vertical polarised Delta loop for 40m with an apex at 50ft on Thursday to complement my dipole at 50ft. Good decision for a bit of wire and time as most of the time it was 5 to 10dB better than the dipole. Low angle is vital when the SFI is low.
One thing I found rather frustrating two DX areas would choose the same frequency to work on and I could hear both but they could not hear each other. Good idea to not go to the 0.5 or .0 KHz but offset a bit either side say .8 or .3 as less likely to clash with an unheard other. So a couple of times had to QRM one to work the other.
As for non-BERU countries calling it was lower this year. A couple of Gs who I just sent their call and 5NN, two Americans (they revolted in the 18th century!) for which I have a F key: SRI UR NOT BERU. Was disappointed as not called by any Italians normally am. Years ago even heard an Italian calling CQ BERU! Finally almost made a grave error, copied initially HS0ZJF as 5H0ZJF always have that problem of hearing what I was expecting rather than what was actually sent. Similar when VY2/G3VYI called was hearing an X for /. Oh well after more than 50 years learning CW still need to improve… Back to Morse Runner and QRQ.
As for the kit and antennas just worked. Taller tower and a couple more of them would be useful but that is dream land.
73 David G3YYD aka M7T
BERU 2019 G4NBS
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Reports
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BERU 2019 G4DRS
11 Monday Mar 2019
Great fun! Despite the conditions, this contest is always a good one. Thanks for the QSOs.
Conditions were challenging, although some of the VK/ZL stations were very strong on all bands.
The main feeder to the remote antenna switch failed at around midnight, so that needs fixing. Fortunately, I was able to swap the 6m feeder and the HF feeder over quickly at both ends to get back going.
There’s always something to fix after a contest!
The main feeder to the remote antenna switch failed at around midnight, so that needs fixing. Fortunately, I was able to swap the 6m feeder and the HF feeder over quickly at both ends to get back going.
There’s always something to fix after a contest!
Thanks, folks, for the QSOs.
John
G4DRS