I am beginning to ‘get’ this contest in terms of appeal but I hope I am not too late in coming into the fold. Boy, is this one hard work. Immense thanks to all those guys who do turn out for the event, and to the travelers for making non-VE/VK/ZL DX available. Otherwise, with a few notable exceptions of support from resident ops like VP8NO & 6Y5HN as great examples, this contest would be a lot less interesting. I have a feeling, with no evidence to back it up, that there were fewer VE and VK actually active this year, but my feeling could be quite wrong.
My antennas have survived the more recent high winds and I did not have any issues in the shack so no complaints there. I am not very accomplished at SO2R, even with the leisurely pace of this contest, but the second radio did prove a benefit at times.
Conditions were generally rotten, but what to expect with SF of 70 and no spots? I thought 15 was worse than last year and, while 20m had its moments, more so on Sunday to the East and North, I thought the propagation from here to VE was very disappointing – or am I confusing low activity with poorer propagation again!? I thought 40 and 80m were not too bad to the East and NE – there were some nice signals from a few VKs on 80m around my SS – VK2BJ worthy of mention here – and a clutch of VK6s also before their SR. Sunday morning LP on 40m was actually disappointing into VK but ZL seemed to be easy. There were some great signals from ZL on 80m around my SR on Sunday. I actually thought I might have added to my one QSO on 10m (GM6XX) since I could hear some weak signals on Sunday am and there was (of course) some FTx activity, but nothing. I tried to pass Nigel XF, heard him but he could not hear me. Most of my UK HQ QSOs on 15m were passes though I heard some CQing. Most, though not all, of the HQ stations seemed willing to move and try. All my UK HQ passes on 10m failed, apart from Chris. I also found that, in more general terms, when I asked a lot of stations about moving, I just got my report and SN again, or no response at all. Must be something I said…………………
If anyone affected is reading this, my apologies to those many, many callers who called me but who I could not work. I spent a lot of time and RF saying ‘sri’, ‘only BERU’ and such like, and to Gs the ‘no UK’ which must have seemed odd when they probably had heard or made QSOs with the XXs or G3DR. Unlike with the DUPE debate, I am not sure just working these callers is the idea. I tried that briefly but it just seemed to encourage a whole lot more callers. When we are, in general, trying to encourage people to call in contests, it was uncomfortable saying ‘no’.
There was also a fair amount of DQRM – carriers, keying, CQing on top etc. Not so easy to ignore in BERU when every last QSO is so precious. I had one QRMer who could clearly hear what was going on and deliberately covered up the serial nr I was trying to get over and over with impeccable timing. Thankfully the BERU station was very patient.
I was rather glad when it was over, the last few hours were torture, but on reflection, I absolutely did enjoy it.
BAND QSO DUP DXC HQ POINTS BONUS AVG
80 70 0 27 7 350 940 18.43
40 94 2 35 9 470 1280 18.62
20 138 3 39 11 690 1680 17.17
15 22 0 15 6 110 440 25.00
10 2 0 0 1 5 20 12.50
TOTAL 326 5 116 34 1625 4360 18.36 TOTAL SCORE : 5 985
This will change since, apart from my errors, I had one enterprising VK6 who called on 20m Sunday am, gave me 001 but also insisted on sending me HQ which, of course, I logged.
73 Keith GM4YXI