RSGB Commonwealth Contest
Call: G3BJ
Operator(s): G3BJ
Station: G3BJ
Class: Open-24 HP
QTH: Woolston
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
80: 48
40: 91
20: 134
15: 118
10: 63
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Total: 454 Total Score = 7,650
Club: Chiltern DX Club
Comments:
Another BERU has come and gone. A few observations and comments from me.
Firstly it was great so see new calls in the UK entrants �" I got the
impression of a new generation of BERU followers and that made it that much
more exciting. Conditions were affected, I think, by the flare during the week
and I found the early hours of the contest quite noisy �" surprisingly so
�" even on HF with waves of noise going across the bands at times. In
terms of activity, BERU owes a lot to the travellers and also to the stalwarts
around the world who are there every year to make the mix more enjoyable. BERU
has a unique feature which frustrates and challenges. Why else would we sit
around for 24 hours to make just 500 QSOs?
Always I find that something could have been a lot better and this year was no
exception. In the later stages of CQ WPX SSB last weekend I found that the
amplifier tripped out for no good reason, and claimed an arc fault. It
transpired that one of the feedlines was showing poor SWR on all antennas it
fed, and I suspected a problem where the rather bulky LDF Heliax connector
connects to the remote relay box �" I’ve had issues there before. So I
cleaned it up and all was well for the rest of WPX. Then Friday I noticed that
the background noise level on the bands fed by that feed line would drop
suddenly for no reason. I feared I had not cleared the fault fully and I was
right. It returned Sunday morning of BERU and tripped the amplifier again.
Reasoning showed that it is in fact the relay box in the shack which feeds the
two LDF lines to the antennas �" I suspect a duff relay. Work to do.
Anyway, I was able to work around the issue with careful choice of which
antenna/rig I used on which band.
The African contest seems to have been a non-event here in Europe. But I’d be
interested to hear the views of the African team on whether it caused mayhem.
Still a silly clash of dates, and if the contest grows it could still yet be an
issue for BERU.
Apart from that, it kind of worked OK here. Tiredness took its toll about
04.00, not helped by the scarcity of stations to work at that time. But the 20m
opening overnight netted a good haul of VK and ZL, whilst 80 and 40 were, to
mind, rather poor overnight.
Some really good signals from the travellers �" Nigel G3TXF (of course),
Mike G3VYI who was loud everywhere, and Nick 5Z4LS come to mind. Bob’s
(G3PJT) modest set-up played well, and he was a great signal into the UK. I got
the impression that ZL support was holding up well, but was VK down ? Some of
the regulars were notable by their absence. Great signals from ZL generally,
although 80 m VK/ZL was as I remember it from the past, rather sub-average. A
good clutch of ZL2 on 80 but little else apart from VK6 and a couple of VK2s.
BERU is an ideal contest for SO2R and I ran that mode for the full 24 hours. I
am often tempted to try SO (A) in BERU, such is the challenge of finding the
bonus QSOs, but it seems to detract from the fundamental essence of the
contest. So bonuses were hand cranked here, literally, as most of the time was
spent turning the VFO of the non-active radio to find them. I also considered
whether to use G5W, now that it is permitted, but it seemed to me that a number
of years as G3BJ in BERU may have made some sort of impact in terms of callsign
recognition and as it’s hardly a “rate” contest, I stuck with the main
call. Others used SCCs and I may review that decision for next year.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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