Operating time  : 11:09

 BAND   QSO DUP DXC  HQ  POINTS BONUS   AVG
——————————————–
   80    16   0   6   5      80   280 22.50
   40    25   0  13   4     125   400 21.00
   20    57   1  19   7     285   820 19.39
   15    34   0  17   6     170   600 22.65
   10    25   0  14   1     125   460 23.40
——————————————–
TOTAL   157   1  69  23     785  2560 21.31
============================================
            TOTAL SCORE : 3 345

Not done too many BERUs over recent years – being a non-member of RSGB ruled me out for a while HI HI.

Having rejoined the society last year I had a dabble. With family commitments to honour, the 12-hr section suited me although I still had a very sub-optimatal operating schedule missing Saturday afternoon/evening session, no doubt when UK – VE prop likely peaked.

I started with a short 90 minute session around midday but then had to QRX until 2100 UTC. I was quite surprised to be able to work VEs on 10m as late as 2130 UTC with only a wire suggesting I definitely missed a good Saturday evening opening on the higher bands. So with a good chunk of operating time still to fit in, I put a stint in through the wee small hours when the rate was almost nil. Nevertheless, I was rewarded with some surprising 20m QSOs into ZL between 0200 and 0400 UTC. I thought 40m was quite poor overnight but 80m seemed better although I didn’t hear any ZL’s on 80m around sunrise. As others have mentioned, there was lots of raspy sounding signals on many bands.

Pleased with several 5-band QSOs: 5B/G3TXF, 9H1PI, CF3A, G5WS, VE3EJ, VE3JM and VO1HP along with the following 4-banders: GB5CC, GM5WS, GW5WS, VE3KG, VE3NNT, VK6T, VO2AC, ZF2CA and my old mate Andy, 5Z4VJ. For a single coax-fed wire antenna, an 80m ocf dipole is a pretty versatile tool, only needing the ATU on 15m, at least in this configuration.

At some point I must have miscalculated my timings and by the end of the contest I was short by about 50 minutes of operating time – not that it would have made much immpact. Win-Test performed well and I’m pleased with the rig after recently upgrading my trusty FT1000MP MKV to a 5000MP.

FTdx5000MP, 100 W, 80m off centre fed dipole.

73 Dez, G3WW