Hello all

There will probably be some more postings this week about next weekend’s BERU contest.

Anyone new to this contest might not realise how important it is to work as many of the ‘Bonus’ stations which will be active – both in the UK and in the Commonwealth. These stations will have special callsigns and will be sending reports like 5nn 012 HQ.

It can be difficult, especially on 20m, 15m and 10m to work other UK stations – generally speaking the UK HQ stations (GB5CC, G6XX, G3DR and other G_6XX variants) will be using amplifiers and yagis, so there are two possibilities (other than ground wave if you are near to one of them) i.e. forward scatter (you beam towards them) or backscatter (you beam in the same direction as them). This assumes you have a directional antenna of course, but if you don’t, call the UK HQ station anyway and if they can hear you, they will be happy to try working you. Remember UK non-HQ stations to UK non-HQ stations QSOs do not count for points.

For example in the ARRL DX SSB contest yesterday, M6T’s signal on 15m was S9 here on backscatter – both beaming to the USA.

I’ll be operating an HQ station signing GM6XX in BERU from here near Inverness, so hope to work as many UK stations as possible. Most of the HQ stations will spend their time ‘running’ stations to give everyone the best opportunity to gain the Bonus points, but don’t be surprised if an HQ station calls you when you are CQing.

73 Chris
GM3WOJ