Enough has already been said about propagation but suffice it to say that after hours listening to watery signals at or near the noise, and/or endless looping auto-CQs overnight, my post contest breakfast porridge brewing on the hob probably resembled the state of my brain by then. Last year as GW4J I clocked 340 Qs without the benefit of UK contacts: this time as an HQ it was under 390 which says something about conditions. I hope the travelers didn’t feel disappointed but rest assured it would have been far worse without you!

The start was very slow but did pick up during the day and I was quite pleased with the way the log was ticking along albeit with frequent problems copying serials. 10m was a wash out with only 3 UK calls logged (M5DX, G3BJ and G4A predictably) though I did get a response from 5Z4VJ but couldn’t be sure of the serial so marked it as X-QSO. Despite calls in the bandmap my P3 panadapter remained resolutely flat on 10m for most of the contest. There was a slight up tick in VK/ZL activity around the dawn period but nothing on 80m, just 40 and 20m. The last 3 hours were extremely quiet. 

Finalising some repairs (feeder) to my Hexbeam was a last minute rush in the poor weather of the preceding week but just about managed to raise it to around 8 or 9 metres early Friday. I felt I was getting out better than I was hearing as I was aware at times of being called but with little or no chance of copying the call and serial and completing a QSO.

SH5 tells me that from 20 countries and 207 unique calls, 48.8% of my log is UK with 29.2% from Canada and 9.4% from VK/ZL. I worked 7 x VE7/VA7 on 20m and 3 on 40m. Just 3 x VE6 on 20m. 

With numbers of probably inaudible signals it’s difficult to judge activity levels but on a positive note I was pleased that the wider concept of ‘Commonwealth’ seems to be expanding with the recent governance tweaks. Raoul ZS1C has been creating some interest in South Africa and VU seems now to be more active – smalls steps but right direction?

K3S/amp @~ 650w with Hexbeam plus verticals and dipoles

Stew GW0ETF (op GW6XX)