From: Nick G4FAL
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2022 18:17:56 GMT
I am rather like Stewart in that I don’t feel much like doing radio at the moment – not enough international goodwill and harmony about. The Commonwealth Contest was a welcome activity for me which also kept me away from the News. Everything worked well here and there were no high winds to break any aerials unlike CQWW CW and the CQWW 160 CW. I did however find on Friday that one of our trees is gradually getting blown down and its roots are coming out of the ground – which in turn is pulling up a load of radial wires. Tomorrow, Nick M1DDD is helping me chop the tree down – which will replenish some of our firewood supplies and hopefully solve the problem. In the contest, 20m was the best performer. I even heard some ZLs at 3am long path and worked one of them; the other I already had. Some years, the night-time long path can be really good. I did get VE6 and VE7 on 20m but on no other bands. Also I nearly worked all the Australian HQs on 20m but didn’t hear them much anywhere else. 40m was quite good but it gave up the ghost in the night – perhaps the MUF was too low. 80m was ok but not great – just a few VKs on Saturday evening and a few ZLs on Sunday morning. 15m was good, but not at its best, and 10m was disappointing. I had some 10m QSOs at the beginning and at the end, but not really any in the middle, other than John VE3EJ who was marginal copy, as was I with him. The four hours from 2am to 6am were truly painful, with the best one providing four QSOs, despite alternating CQs on 40m and 80m, or calling on one band and scouring the other one. My only five-band QSOs were with GB5CC, GW6XX, VE3EJ and VK6T. Thanks to those who operated the HQ stations, which were a useful addition to the proceedings.  BAND   QSO DUP DXC  HQ  POINTS BONUS   AVG ——————————————–   80    56   2  17   6     280   640 16.43    40    83   2  24   8     415  1040 17.53    20   105   1  34  14     520  1420 18.48    15    59   0  27   5     295   960 21.27    10    12   0   8   2      60   240 25.00 ——————————————–TOTAL   315   5 110  35    1570  4300 18.63 ============================================            TOTAL SCORE : 5 870 Nick G4FAL