From: Don Beattie, G3BJ
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2020 21:12:28 GMT

I opted out of competing this year, to host the GB5CC HQ station from here. So this is not a report on a competitive entry, but rather the opportunity to comment on the conditions and activity.

 

BERU remains my fun contest of the year, requiring as it does, reasonable antennas and a quiet location (some of the incoming signals are pretty weak!) So having the additional challenge of trying to work a bundle of UK stations on five bands is quite entertaining.

A couple of weeks ago, I was wondering whether the winds were ever to end, as I had lowered both towers before Ciara arrived. They were still down on Monday as it has not stopped blowing here since. After 10 years I lost the top of the Titanex again, and although the repaired section is ready to go up, I did not have time to do it. So the Titanex was 70ft instead of 90, with two top loading wires which I put on when I removed the debris from the break.  It was fine on 80, but did not really match on 40, so I was relying on a single 2ele yagi for 40m. I finally got the towers up on Thursday, but not fully, as we are still in the wind season, – they were at 60ft and 45 ft respectively. I must try to get the Titanex repaired this week.

I found conditions “mixed”. Of course we are down in the basement of solar activity, so any serious DX on 10m was unlikely. If it happened, I missed it. I did move Nigel to 10m and heard him esp, but he did not hear me. So the 16 contacts on 10m were all UK, and were the 16 UK stations who worked me on all five bands. I moved on request, which I hope helped a few.  Apologies to Nick for bungling the first QSY to 10m – I said one QRG, but thought another!  Good to hear you back on, Nick.

In terms of DX, my QSO mix, excluding the UK QSOs was:

OC: 20%

AS: 2.5%

AF: 7%

SA: 2.5%

NA: 63%

EU: 5%

The 80m path to VK/ZL was in two halves for me – good to VK on Saturday evening, and good to ZL Sunday morning. This aligns with the pattern of common darkness, so is to be expected. Caribbean seemed generally very good, as was Canada. Some of the Asia-Pacific DX signals on 15 were real esp, with by some pretty sturdy QSB which on peaks helped copy the reports. The beverages were of great use on LF to get rid of side lobe noises and simply to hear properly. The K9AY also helped on some Contacts. But the LF bands seemed devoid of fresh pickings around 02.30 so I must admit to 75 minutes sleep just then.

In terms of gotaways, it was reasonably satisfactory, except VA7RAC, who seemed profoundly deaf on LF.  Some very nasty clix from a few competitors in the Tesla contest spoiled 80m a bit on Saturday evening

Good to hear many of usual suspects from VK, ZL and VE still in there, and also the travellers, of course. They make BERU so much more fun.

It’s probably only of academic interest to report the score. I had one advantage compared to other UK entrants, and one disadvantage. The advantage, of course is being a unique bonus. The downside is the mostly continuous string of callers from the UK  (over 400) which masked DX from time to time. How those two factors balanced out, I don’t know. Anyway, here are the numbers:

BAND   QSO DUP DXC  HQ  POINTS BONUS   AVG

——————————————–

80   190   1  30   7     365  1020  7.29

40   206   1  31   5     465  1280  8.47

20   240   5  38   6     620  1500  8.83

15    62   2  19   4     155   580 11.85

10    14   0   0   2      10    40  3.57

——————————————–

TOTAL   712   9 118  24    1615  4420  8.48

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

TOTAL SCORE : 6 035

Thanks for all the QSOs

73

Don, G3BJ / G5W (and GB5CC for the weekend)