Hi Bob

If I was to summarise: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. 

This year I operated as ZL6HQ which made it a totally different contest.  My goal was to simply get on and call CQ to hand out bonus points (all right I couldn’t resist calling some rare stuff and other HQ stations). I was also joined by Geoff Gooch ZL3AL who did the day shift.

The first five hours were great with 80/40 open to VE/Caribbean as well as some short runs on 20m.  15m then opened brilliantly to G between 2 and 3am local time with one of the biggest CC pile ups I have ever had to manage.  I couldn’t believe it was open so late.

Right on cue the CC A/K Index curse then took over as things slowed down after that with the Sunrise 80/40 session really disappointing.  Geoff then took over and it turned into a war of attrition.  I felt so sorry for him I made him lunch.  He felt so sorry for himself, he ate it.  10m was particularly disappointing.  It never opened to G but the RBN showed it was open to VE for short periods but with few takers.

Things picked up in the late afternoon and 80 opened to G at sunset which nabbed me 20 or so QSOs.  40 and 20 were the best bands after that as 15 refused to play ball with signals quite weak – not surprising as the K index hit 5!

The geomagnetic disturbance not only made 10m rubbish, but also polar signals really watery especially on 20m from G.  The highlight was Nigel VP8TXF calling me on 40m but his signal was so distorted it sounded like he was sending from the bottom of a pipe!  His serial number was a total guess on my part (as were a few others).  8P, 6Y and 5Z also made the log.  No ZS (again) and I couldn’t hear the V51 when he was spotted.

For all of that I did manage the most QSOs I have ever made in CC and as a team we cracked 400 QSOs which we were chuffed about. We were using my remote station and it worked flawlessly (if I do say so myself).  We had surprisingly few non-commonwealth callers although several were persistent.  

I also felt participation was up so the promotional work done certainly had an effect.  Locally 5W1SA and 3D2AG were on as was a 9M, not that I could hear him.  Never heard 9V or VU either.  There were also some ZLs on I hadn’t heard before (or at least not for a while).

Further consideration however does need to be given to the “dead zone” i.e. 2200z-0400z and the last couple of hours, and what we can do to increase activity during those periods.  Although propagation didn’t help, judging by the RBN there were some short openings to/from ZL on 10/15/20. It is quite obvious when the Gs head to bed and/or stations just stop after the first 12 hours.

I also think we need to up the sacrifices to the propagation gods for next year as CC is becoming synonymous with solar disturbances.  Perhaps we could offer up an FT8 operator?   

73

Mark ZL3AB

ZL6HQ (Ops: ZL3AB ZL3AL)

PS:  I am assuming if VE becomes the 51st state they will get dispensation to enter next year?

Commonwealth Contest from VK5WIA HQ
From: Grant Willis (VK5GR)
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2025 02:00:07 GMT

Folks,

A short summary from VK5WIA/HQ

This year I had a quite amazing run on the high bands, finding 15m open to both the UK and Canada at the same time at 3AM as well as having a fantastic run on 10m at the start of the contest! While I didn’t hear the guys on VP8 I did work 9J, ZF, 6Y, 9V plus VO2AC (Zone 2). The run of G’s on 10m was great. 80m – I called quite often for short periods around the 00Hr mark on 80m but struggled to get many callers. I did at least pick up Tony 3D2AG on 80 as well as a few ZLs.  I also called Andy 5Z4VJ quite a few times, but he tells me his noise floor is terrible too and he never heard me, despite me hearing him on at least 3 bands.

There were also a few VKs I couldn’t reach. I could hear the VK2s and 3s on back scatter, but the signal was really weak and distorted. I couldn’t read you well enough to call. I suspected at the time you all had your beams back on to me too (I would have given the openings in progress). Working domestic 10m and 15m on such short hops is not easy it seems.

My main problem was the huge amount of RFI I copped during daylight hours. Unlike the east coast, we haven’t had any real rain since last August, and apart from a couple of days in September, and one rain event at the start of December we have had practically nothing since. This has meant that the noise from the 11kV power lines around here is through the roof during the day – and only really drops after about 9pm at night. This made daytime copy of long path G land very difficult indeed. VE short path was also a washout for the same reason,  and unfortunately, I slept through the VE LP opening Sunday morning having stayed up till 5.30am working both VE and G areas all night.

Overall, I can’t really complain as I did manage a new PB score of 4000+ points for this contest. Looking back through my logs the closest I had previously reached was in the low 3000s – so happy about that.

I hope the rest of the team stations did well. Looking at the online scoreboard however I suspect the Canadians may have whipped our backsides this time.  Let’s see how it plays out.

Contest: RSGBBERU

Band     QSOs     Pts  Cty  Sec  Pt/Q

   3.5      10     225    8    1  22.5

     7      26     630   23    2  24.2

    14      86    1630   39    7  19.0

    21      59     965   19    4  16.4

    28      65     890   16    1  13.7

Total     246    4340  105   15  17.6

Score: 4,340

1 Mult = 2.1 Q’s

it was, as usual, a great pleasure to be on the air.Being an HQ station, I wasn’t really after multipliers.I preferred to give everyone the opportunityto contact an HQ station in RUN/CQ mode.  As usual, several several stations came back to me with their exchange before I went to transmit HQ. Did they log it? It annoys me.
Next year, especially if the propagation predictions are rightI’ll try to put more time into it.
73Claude VE2FK for VA2RAC HQ