Hi everyone

 

Last week was crazy at work so here’s a late report on my effort in the 2026 Commonwealth Contest.

 

After a few years away from HF contesting (new house build + losing access to my old farm‑stay portable site), I finally decided it was time to jump back in and have a crack at the 2026 Commonwealth Contest. It’s always been one of my favourites — friendly operators, lots of strategy, and a more relaxed pace.

 

My new home QTH in suburban Melbourne isn’t exactly contest‑friendly… planning restrictions + high QRN = no thanks. So I went hunting for a rental outside the city and found a place up in the Dandenong Ranges with a nice take‑off to the north and enough trees to hang a couple of wire antennas. Even better, it was available (and affordable!) for the contest weekend.

 

Setup was the usual portable operation scramble: getting ropes in trees, two multiband dipoles (one for NA, one for EU), FLEX‑6400 configured, laptop behaving… mostly. I didn’t get time for a full shakedown, but I was “contest‑ready” a few minutes before the start — or so I thought.

 

10M and 15M were dead at kick-off, so I dropped to the lower bands. Rates were slow, much slower than I remembered. I initially thought it was just me getting back into the swing of the game, but later discovered two other culprits:

1. the K‑index was ugly, and
2. I’d been switching the RX antenna correctly… but forgetting to switch the TX. So for the first 10 hours I was only transmitting on the EU dipole. Oops! With about 10 dB difference between the two antennas, that definitely didn’t help my signal into VE land.

 

Noise levels at the rental were better than home — around S3 on 80M down to S1 on 10M (250 Hz). Running 100W meant I was usually hearing stations better than they were hearing me, so the noise wasn’t a show‑stopper.

 

Conditions overall were tough. The usual 80M G opening on our Sunday morning was almost non-existent. I only managed G6XX on that band. 15M didn’t wake up until late Sunday morning, and during the day the only DX I worked (other than VK/ZL) were VE3EJ, 5Z4VJ, 5W1SA, 3B8XF and 9H6A. Thankfully the band perked up in the last hour and I scraped in G6XX, G3BJ and M5DX after many repeats. 10M was barely alive — just five QSOs, four VKs plus P3X who was absolutely blasting in on an otherwise empty band.

 

Africa was a pleasant surprise though. ZS1C was huge on 20M, and I managed both 5Z4VJ and 3B8XF on three bands. The highlight was catching 3B8VV on 80M at sunrise, despite a hill directly behind my QTH blocking the short‑path direction.

WriteLog summary:
80M: 23 QSOs
40M: 88
20M: 97
15M: 17
10M: 5
Total: 230 QSOs, 4780 points, 62 CAs, 34 HQs

 

Low rates made it a bit of a grind, but I somehow stayed awake for most of the 24 hours. The world’s most uncomfortable chair probably helped.

 

Thanks to everyone for the QSOs and for sticking with me through the repeats and band changes. Great to be back in the Commonwealth Contest again.

 

73, Brian VK3MI

Antennas: Two multiband dipoles @15m (EU + NA)
Radio: FLEX‑6400 (100W)

As normal, I try to route to ZF via some business meetings. This year its Vegas and then Phoenix, far more similar climates to ZF than snowbound Reedsburg would have been and so simplifies my wardrobe.

The Phoenix meeting involved getting to a 6000 ft radio site and installing some experimental equipment. It is a civil utility site so my colleague and I were not allowed to ride in the customer vehicles but instead had to hire a big 4×4 and drive sandwiched between two of theirs for an hour of serious off-roading. I tried to explain to my team back home that this had been a hard day at the office but their attitude was rather similar to my school chemistry and careers teacher who once said he would inform future employers they would not have to pay me a lot as I enjoyed my work too much. Hmpf.

 

The engineers were kind in showing us all around the installation including the solar battery room which could keep everything up for two days or more. On going to enter the battery room I looked at him quizzically when he knocked before opening the door. Is someone living inside?

 

“Critters”, he explains, and on walking in showed me a large sticky pad with scorpions and large millipedes stuck to it. “Even those millipedes can give you a bite that will spoil your day” he explained. Apparently knocking the door scares them away. Then they told stories of a large rattle snake on site the previous week.

 

The customer’s diary meant we had to do this on the Wednesday and the indefinite end time meant planning for the final leg to ZF on the Thursday, which decoded as the 5 a.m. flight via Dallas, getting me into Zf1A late-afternoon Thursday and the very latest I wanted to arrive, remembering how complex the station has become. While stopping during the trip, and apart from grabbing the odd moment with Morse Runner, I was still trying to find a fifth member for Team World Travellers after Dom, M1KTA, discovered some grown-up admin challenges getting his licence for C5. Phoning and emailing for weeks previously had failed so he turned up in person and was promised it for later this week, after BERU. Forlorn, he gave up and travelled home. 

 

As usual Marty was good at finding time for me as US remote IT support in between his work meetings and getting to watch a hockey game. So there I am, helpless, while the expert dials in on Anydesk from his phone and sets things up whilst stationary in traffic. I want DxLog set up as SO2R on two K3s (one I left during covid and is now built in), but that’s not how the other ZF1A operators normally do it. After a few false starts I left (or risk missing dinner) but by Friday morning we are up. I familiarise myself again and prepare the 24 hours of snacks. (Note to self – four rounds of sandwiches is plenty). Prices in the shops here remain a constant surprise: mid-sized Gold Blend coffee is $10.99 and the big one $19.99. These numbers are always large and end .99

 

As usual various calls intervene. One caller was kind enough to apologise but I said it was normal and that BERU prep days seem to be magnets for interruptions and other ‘opportunities’.

Early to bed as there is a 3.30 a.m. wake-up call before driving 25 minutes to the station for the 5 a.m. start, but I was already stirring. One of my plaintive emails has been answered and Ivan 9H1PI as 9H6A is to complete Team World Travellers Plus (consisting travellers plus home stations).

 

What is it about BERU that creates such legal excitement, even in a (young) pensioner? I am ever fearful of messing up the first few minutes on 80, as I did one year with an idiot switching error. Blink and those first few contacts are gone.

 

As I have written, every year I find I appear on 20 with my score way behind the leaders and then have to work hard to try to catch up. This year I’ve been studying logs harder and may have spotted my error. I’ve been going via 40, soaking up VE/VK/ZL bonuses while they’re definitely around as it’s not clear they will be around later.  But the big VE guns have been going to 20 earlier and running hard. So, this year I did similarly, arriving at 10.45 expecting the normal pileup. Obviously, this was now too early as everything was weak and slow. Wondering whether I am wasting time, slowly it dawns on me that HF conditions are just not great. The G-run wasn’t awful, it was just not what it should be with signals and rate. However, I do run into VE3EJ on 75 to my 141 and CF3A on 138 to my 181, so the new strategy might be working? For his year at least. I have now also taken to changing gears more definitely between running the pileups at 30wpm and doing the rest of the contest slower, as Andy G4KNO pointed out, at the average speed of 24 and with a fair amount at 20.

 

15 wasn’t bad, and it is often the very best band to G and to VK/ZL. But the 10m G-run just never really happened.

 

With so many opting to do 12-hours the game is increasingly not one of propagation studies, but of propagation plus ‘being at their station’ predictions. It almost feels more like fishing than Amateur Radio, trying to lay down signals in places when people just might be about, and waiting. This is particularly noticeable on the VK/ZL paths on their Sunday morning. The world map is showing it is light and so definitely (well, probably) open on 20, and previously 40, but no signals. Zilch. When they do show up, they are loud, proving the point. But when they do, its ‘QSY them all!’ and I get cross and shouty if I fail to get the message across before they tune away. This year I had the impression more were ready for this, apart from those that just couldn’t read “QSY” at all but just repeated their exchange again and again.

 

10m remained challenging with only 29 contacts and not many very strong (though there were a few), so I quickly learned to QSY people there last, mostly to oblivion. VP9I, one of my own team mates, took me there to mine twice! Not a squeak either time, who’d have thought it.

 

VU and the Far East has always seemed elusive but there was one stunningly loud VU on 40 at 01:00

 

Night time (01:30z) this year was a proper graveyard shift so I took two hours kip instead of 90 minutes. Fortunately, the morning parade was good with decent openings on 80 and 40. I crept back to 20 on and off and ended there.

 

Points: 10,505. Hrs.: 22

Station: 2x K3, DxLog

Acom 2000, Elecraft KPA1500

Log periodic 40-10 at 30m

Big Triband pointed to EU at 20m

C31, 2-ele 80m all at 20m

Beverages at NW, N and NE

Bose QC35 wired (which can manage 24 hours on one charge, but needs a longer lead)

 

After the contest I attend the CARS club night if I can. This year it looked to be on the wrong week, but suddenly it turned out it wasn’t. My host Andrew Eden asked if I had a short talk handy as previous years, but I had nothing prepared. So having been dabbling in precious metals of late I decided to talk about silver and its uses in electronics and then segway to its other uses. This forced me to spend Monday reminding myself of the key facts:

• Silver is the best electrical conductor at 5% better than copper 
• It is also the best thermal conductor at 7% better than copper
• Because when plated is has lower surface roughness, microwave cavity Q can be 30% higher than copper
• It tends not to oxidize like copper but to sulphide up, but this is a better conductor than copper oxide and lowers Q less severely
• Gold is better for contacts as it does not corrode but has 50% higher intrinsic resistance
• Skin effect, where RF flows increasingly only on the outside of conductors at higher frequencies, means that at microwaves the plating needs only to be microns thick
• Litz wire also can help and can lead to dramatic increase in Q, up to about 2MHz.Traditionally it was used in IF coils but today is used in induction hob elements. Litz means ‘woven’ and brings the different conductors to the surface along the length and is another invention of the great Nikolai Telsa. Silver gives only modest improvements as skin effect is not so great. Why audiophiles like to use silver plated Litz wire is anyone’s guess.

Then I progress to silver having become far more expensive over the last couple of years and was going to make a joke about ISAs (a UK gvt personal tax-free wrapper for savings). I tried looking up what a Cayman equivalent is, but of course, they have no taxes. This means none of:

• Corporation tax
• Income Tax
• National Insurance
• Capital Gains Tax
• Inheritance
• Dividend tax
• Interest tax
• Wealth tax
• VAT

This obviously means there is no concept of an ISA. Nor tax collectors or inspectors. This idea of no taxes is starting to sound very appealing! Instead they run their economy by large import duties (hence the coffee prices), loading up businesses and especially the financial services industry, and tourism. The simplest description is of taxing what you spend instead of what you earn.

 

Employers and employees have to contribute into pensions at 5% each, employers must provide health insurance and pay at least 50% of the premium.

Anyway, for amusement I present a typical tax burden build up that Brits suffer. The ex-pats in the room of course were all too familiar and how they are ducking it, but the locals had never seen this and were visibly wincing as the number added up. I won’t repeat it here, but try it as an exercise calculating the additive tax burden you are living with. And then include your heirs.

 

The talk continued on the dramatic rise of silver and gold and their historic use literally as money. As I had elsewhere been shown, when turned it upside down it shows that the long-term buying power of gold thrashes about around a mean, but the buying power of the ‘fiat currencies’ (those not pegged to gold or any other standard) continues to fall and fall, but we are too used to this to notice. Ask yourself how much your grandparents paid for their house?

 

Interestingly the Qs and As seemed livelier than my usual talks on radio topics.

 

Club nights are different at every club. My local club Camb-Hams has no constitution and no committee; we all just turn up at the pub monthly for chats over a beer and a meal. And I nag about participants for the AFS contests.

 

Cayman Amateur Radio Society has structured monthly meetings with a written agenda, a start including minutes of the last meeting, apologies for absence, deals with the months business and has an end. The regular agenda includes ‘Testing the emergency radio’- a VHF and HF pair that are there ready in case of tornados taking out the formal telecoms networks, a real possibility and a lifeline to others off the island.

 

However, this year there is a hiatus. For some reason we are not meeting in the Red Cross hall but a church hall. I crack a joke about having been being kicked out by the nurses, which turns out be to a bit close to the bone: The new Red Cross director ‘doesn’t like Hams’, despite the island’s emergency radios and antennas being installed in his building and grounds. It seems this prejudice exists even in paradise.

 

Then the other universal theme: At field day the old hands are wondering where the younger volunteers are. Field Day involves going to the beach with equipment, I think both radio and barbeque.

“We gettin’ tired of doin’ all di hompin’” says one. “It’s time di yong ones learn how to homp it all down to di bich at 6.30 a.m. like we’ve always don!”.

 

‘Twas ever thus, and is true in other specialist clubs I belong to that seem to each enjoy the same demographic time bomb.

 

My wrap up of the weekend below for the website.

After returning from an interstate trip, I just had a couple of days to repair the 40m beam and get the tower back up again, fortunately the VK6 weather relented and we had a couple of days of slightly cooler weather. With both towers up and all antennas/gear checked on the Friday afternoon I was very happy with the progress. 

After a few hours on Saturday looking after 2 grandsons, (maybe not the best contest prep) and a quick final check of the receive antennas I was ready for a short afternoon nap prior to the start of the contest (6pmlocal time). I awoke at about 5.15pm to discover that we had no power. This is not entirely unusual in the hills of Perth with dodgy poles/wires and maybe I’ve been very lucky in that it’s not happened before or during a major contest. 

The power company send a text to tell me what I already knew, and then another to give me the good news that the power will be restored at about 9.30pm local time and thanking me for my patience and understanding aargh….At this point I also get a text from Steve VK6VZ, he also had no power. I’m thinking maybe this is the year to do 12 hours, I’ve got enough time for a walk with my XYL and dinner at one of the local pubs with power. 

Magically about 20 mins before the start the power is restored. I was still a bit nervous as to how long it might last, we’ve had false starts before. 

My usual tactic of a quick start on 10m with run of UK stations did not materialise, 15m wasn’t much better either, although it did improve later with both SP and LP signals to the UK. I soon found myself on the lower bands picking off the bonuses, 20m also showed some good signs of activity, but the high solar indices were having an effect. It reminded me of how the contest was during low sunspot years, with a heavy reliance on 20 and 40m. 

A good early opening on 40m to the UK at about 16z was followed by a nice 80m opening at the UK sunset time. 20m was open throughout the night, signals were weaker than normal but workable. Now with all the UK call areas counted as bonuses the contest is more attractive to DX entrants.

At the halfway point my score was looking good, but the second half of the contest was a real grind here in VK with many hours passing by with very little action. It’s making the 12 hour section look very attractive, which is reflected in the participation level for this category

Maybe the conditions this year discouraged some of those with modest setups? However it was good to work some more VU and ZS stations this year. 

Overall the contest was as challenging as ever which is part of the attraction for me, every year is different and the tactics required need to be flexible for the best result.

Thanks again to all the HQ station operators and travellers to exotic locations, your efforts are appreciated.

73’s Kev

VK6T (VK6LW)

My station

FLEX 6600M, FTDX101D, SO2R

15/10m, 4 ele quad at 20m

20m, 2 over 2 stacked X beam at 26m 

40m, X beam at 22m 

80m, dipole at 28m 

RX antennas: 

DLOG (Delta loop on ground) for EU and VE (LF bands)

Beverage for EU (LF bands)

Small loops for 40 to 10m (HF bands)

I was very kindly hosted by Chris G0DWV at his tremendous HF station on the East Coast of the UK and was the operator behind G6XX HQ station for this year’s Commonwealth. Contest. I won’t labour the point about the conditions – but I can concur that they were tough. The k-index at nearly 6 at the start certainly didn’t help. Through the contest, the bands did slightly improve – but I didn’t work VK or ZL on 10m and there were no ZL’s in my log on 15m, which is unusual. On the plus side, I did work 18 x 5 banders and 38 x 4 band QSOs.  Many of the QSOs needed several repeats and were at almost ESP levels – so I suspect my UBN may reflect that. [I normally aim for an error rate of less than 0.5%…..]

 

Thanks go to the travellers who certainly made the contest more enjoyable and to all the individual operators who persevered throughout. Around 50% of my QSOs were with UK stations. Here’s the numbers (I use N1MM for logging – but I don’t think it scores correctly and isn’t really suitable to use by an HQ station)

I had the following equipment / antennas available: IC7851 / K3 + Microham SO2R unit + 2 x SPE 2K Amplifiers, Optibeam 17 – 4 @ 100ft, a C31XR @ 60ft, another C31XR @ 60ft on another tower, 80m 4-Square and 80m dipole @ 60ft – so all the credit goes to Chris for his engineering skill in keeping this equipment working and having an excellent SO2R-equipped station. 

 

73 Graham G4FNL

Well the conditions like other have said were pretty awful at the start and only marginally better towards the end.  The Earth impact of a solar wind sream from a coronal hole doing the damage.
This is the first time I have done an assisted entry in this contest, but I felt obliged in order to secure the most points I could for the England Team!
10m suffered badly and I only managed 1 QSO with New Zealand from ZM1A who was a good signal just short of the end of the contest. However, no other ZL or VK were heard.
I was surprised that Don, 5X1DF had such trouble hearing, we eventually managed to hook up on a couple of bands.
The 80m morning “opening” was non-existant so far as I could tell with no VK/ZL worked and only ZL6HQ and VK6T at around sunset the evening before.  Plenty of VK/ZL on 40 and 20m though. During the night I allowed myself a 20 minute snooze in the chair, only to find myself waking up after only 12 minutes!
It takes a lot of effort to set up for a contest, taking the Friday off work and driving 3.5 hours to the station then taking it all down, getting some sleep and driving home again!  I am grateful to Andy G4PIQ and Martin M0BCT who were able to help get the antennas up on Friday afternoon. Without the travellers this contest would be a lot less interesting, so a big thanks to them for managing to be QRV.
I used DXLog and wasnt sure it was scoring correctly, but it seems to have done a good job and agrees with Win-Test on the final number.

 BAND QSO DUP BONUS HQ POINTS AVG
———————————
   80  43   1    22  9    400 9.3
   40  92   1    51 12    890 9.7
   20 128   2    65 16   1245 9.7
   15  49   0    37  9    455 9.3
   10  23   0    18  4    200 8.7
———————————
TOTAL 334   4   193 50   3190 9.5
=================================
        FINAL SCORE: 8 050

Station, SO2R, Elecraft K4 + K3 with linears, 7 ele 10m, 5 ele 15m, 4 ele 20m, Shorty 2 ele 40m, all at approx 80 ft plus 80m 4sq. & Skyhawk tribander.

Till the next one.
73

Well, ‘death by aurora’ is one way of putting it.

I wasn’t actually expecting to be on for this as a planned family trip over the weekend was in the diary. A change in plan to travel early Sunday morning instead, meant I could negotiate some shack time.

Not feeling well prepared, and with an intermittent fault somewhere in the 20m feeder, expectations were low. I didn’t see the K-index of 6 coming though! As someone said, I too thought there was an antenna issue when I switched on around 1045z and found 10 and 15 more or less empty. Saturday was an almighty struggle with shocking propagation, raspy signals fading in and out and expectations fell further. I plugged away on 10 and 15 for longer than was sensible, wary of going to 20m but the latter at least did work with no flicks of high SWR.

Its all been said already. It was even harder going than usual and I was deflated by the number of times I tuned on to Gs and even some southerly GMs, wondering if I would pick up another QSO, only to find I could not hear anything of who was being worked. There did seem to be a good turnout from VE7 – thanks guys – but the rest of the VE pickings were slim, I have never struggled so hard to work VK (only a few) but there were some excellent signals from ZL. I took a few breaks on Saturday and left some time for Sunday am but our close down was brought forward so I had to pull the switch at 07z with a couple of hours left.

I ‘think’ my 80m QSO with ZL6HQ at his SR Saturday evening was OK; ZL3VZ was decent on Sunday. VK6 was loud on 80 and 40 but the others were few and difficult. The VE time on 40 was also very challenging. Nice to hear at least a few African stations – thanks for making all the effort guys.

I always have periods during this contest where I question my sanity, but I think it is all about managing expectations. As Nick put it, there is something special about each call you get, because it WILL be DX and each one is a victory. I am not advocating inter-G working, though it would relieve the tedium. I was surprised however, how often I got called but UK SCCs……..really guys! Read the rules. Much harder is the inevitable ‘sri etc’ you send when other well meaning Gs call you. Of course they are confused – they are welcome callers for the HQ stations. It’s a dilemma.

 

10 hours QRV

BAND   QSO DUP DXC  HQ  POINTS BONUS   AVG 

——————————————–

   80    24   0  12   7     120   440 23.33 

   40    50   0  20  10     250   820 21.40 

   20    93   1  29   9     465  1200 17.90 

   15    24   1  15   3     120   480 25.00 

   10     9   0   6   2      45   180 25.00 

——————————————–

TOTAL   200   2  82  31    1000  3120 20.60 

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

            TOTAL SCORE : 4 120

73 Keith GM4YXI

 

was reminded of a conversation I had with Bob many years at an IARU Region-1 Conference that I should enter the BERU Contest instead

of messing around on the VHF,UHF & SHF bands. 

Well Bob, I finally did it! 

A very low key effort. I slung up a 400ft doublet to the top of an extended stub-mast on top of one of my towers, up at 90ft, sloping down to

around 50ft and an IC-7300.  Before the contest I was thinking that I might work a couple VK’s and maybe a ZL if I was really lucky.

The start of Saturday was really slow. I was just dipping in and out really.  Anyway, I managed to work many of the travellers and others such 

as 7Q9, ZS1, 5Z4, 3B8, ZF, J38 & VU.  Best of all though was 13 x VK contacts and 8 x ZL contacts on 40m & 20m. So I was well pleased. 

I’ll definitely be back again next year. Might even have a beam instead of a bit of wire!

73 David G4ASR

QRV every band from 1.8MHz to 24 GHz.  

Seizing on the positives: the wind was accommodating – dropping on the Friday to allow the tower to be raised, and starting to get windy again at 10am on the Sunday.Immediately prior to the start, the HF bands seemed dead on the waterfall and I was wondering whether something was broken! I’d already discovered on the Friday that I had an intermittent on my 80m shunt feed. It was too late to track down, so I switched to the 160m gamma wire, which could only muster a 5:1 VSWR. Nevertheless, as it turned out even at reduced power this seemed quite effective on Tx. All of this rather dented the confidence in the station, but a check of the SFI/A/K told the story, and as I heard some of the other serials I realised everyone was struggling. Conditions did seem to improve throughout the day, with quite a good African showing this year. I was amazed that ZS1C knew my name!

As per usual, west is best for me, but 20m was the money band to VE; I think because of the MUF. Was quite pleased to work 10 watery sounding VE7s in the evening. People will be aware I have VDSL noise up to 20m. It’s to the SE, so morning directions aren’t so good. I can get OK-ish noise cancellation on 20m, with reducing effectiveness on 40m/80m. The 40m rotatable dipole has no F/B, of course, so 40m VEs are compromised. Sadly, 80m was almost a total washout. I just can’t hear weak stuff, although they seem to hear me quite well! Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before City Fibre’s digging up of all the roads round here bears fruit. I’m sure the culprit will be happier too – I caused them a lot of re-trains!

I had always intended to get a decent amount of sleep, because I had things to do on the Sunday. I should have entered the 12 hour section as I only put another 12 Qs in the log on the Sunday. As others have noted, the end was a slog. What would be more likely to get another Q? Run or keep tuning? I did both but the latter seemed more productive. Occasionally, I’d listen to some of the usual suspects to see if they were getting callers. Dead horses and flogging, I thought. I was in fact just tuning away from Dave/BUO at the end and realised he was working someone! I tuned back to hear the “QSY 21?”. I couldn’t even hear his caller! Now I know it was ZD7BG I realise he would have been off the side of the beam at the time. I never did work him (again!), despite now having a lower 15m delta-loop pointed at him and selectable via a stackmatch.

All in all, happier this year with the delta to others. I was in fact quite a bit ahead of Dave by Saturday evening – presumably the fault of his visitors! Will I regret not staying awake? I think I need a lower 80m noise floor to make that worthwhile. On the CW front, I found I was going too fast compared to many, so slowed it down to 24wpm. That’s quite a contrast from when I first started entering this contest some 15 years ago.

My thanks to the intrepid travellers, and to the HQ stations. Graham, I did realise you were acknowledging my 5-band feat, but my paddle sending is not very good!

This is how N1MM scores it, but I’m not sure it’s accurate:

        Band     QSOs     Pts  Cty  Sec  Pt/Q
         3.5      12     335    6    6  27.9
           7      53    1305   34    8  24.6
          14      81    1785   42   10  22.0
          21      34     995   29    5  29.3
          28      10     290    8    2  29.0
       Total     190    4710  119   31  24.8

            Score : 4,710

IC-7610 + 1K-FA

Momobeam TRI-12 @18m

Loaded 40m rotatable dipole @21m

80m shunt fed tower

15m delta loop @11m

Wellgood loop

73 Andy, G4KNO.

Its a long way to north Grenada but worth it ! Arrived monday, setup suitcase vertical in he garden and 10/15 dipole in a friendly palm tree, and 80m L

on wednsday. Not very high wires  but nice views! You can see Pompey on a clear day hoho..Amazing views from a cottage overlooking  the Atlantic about 200,’ up.This cottage recommend by Iain G4SGX  and Bob is  great site to VE  and UK with a garden and NO noise, electrical or sonic… 

Conditions  as expected were poor till saturday pm, thanks to all who listened  for repeats at 12 wpm, eg 3B8XF and most G s on 80m….80m was ok  to VE at the start , VE7 s, but not good  to UK, usually work Chris  GM6XX ok  but he could not hear my100w  and L …but moving up  the bands found 10m poor too. I , managed 20 hours operating and finally some runs to G VE on 20m and 40m…as expected 20 and 15 found VK and ZL early doors  from here LP, always a bonus. But 80 was still poor on Sunday at 4am here, then working G on 40m also hard, but some runs, but 20 and 15m opened from 0600 to VK ZL and G for some later runs,. Again great fun and used BERU in honour of Bob PJT.  Thanks to the HQ stations for being on 24 hrs, great job. Commiserations to Dom in C5 and Don in 5X who travelled far but had problems…it can be tough travelling , but xyl likes  the sun !

Thanks  to Stew GW6XX  for running  the BERU  website , please post  the reports  again

Mike J38YI / G3VYI