RSGB Commonwealth Contest - 2019
Call: VK3MI
Operator(s): VK3MI
Station: VK3MI
Class: SO-Restricted24 LP
QTH: VIC
Operating Time (hrs): 20
Summary:
Band QSOs
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80: 44
40: 111
20: 48
15: 2
10: 0
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Total: 205 Total Score = 3,605
Club: VK Contest Club
Comments:
This year I decided to rent some accommodation in a rural area for a portable
operation, away from the urban QRN and with some space to erect proper antennas.
I booked a property at Hoddles Creek, about an hour’s drive east of Melbourne.
The QTH is on a hill about 475m ASL and has a low angle to the horizon (less
than 3 degrees) in all directions. Most importantly, it has some tall trees
about 50m distance from the accommodation that can be used to support wire
antennas.
I nearly had to abandon the operation due to wild bush fires that had been
burning out of control in an area about 5 km south of the QTH. There was a risk
the QTH would have to be evacuated if the fires flared up again and there was a
wind change from the south. Fortunately, this did not happen, and I only had to
contend with some rather smoky air 😊
My original plan was to erect a quarter wave vertical with two elevated radials
for 80M, and a pair of orthogonal multi-band dipole antennas for the higher
bands. Unfortunately, I ran out of time on the Saturday afternoon to complete
this plan and ended up having to make do with a single multi-band dipole at the
start of the contest. However, I did take a break during the slower hours on
Sunday afternoon to install the 80M vertical, and also haul up the dipole a
little higher to an overall height of around 20m AGL.
The absence of man-made QRN was amazing. Compared to my city QTH, there was up
to a 30 dB reduction in background noise on 80M and 40M. It was so quiet that I
initially thought there had to be a fault in the antenna or receiver! I had not
heard the bands this quiet since the days of operating at the rural ZL6QH
super-station. Of course, the downside of having such a low level of background
noise is that many stations were Q5 copy with me but I could not even raise a
'QRZ?' from them.
I was reasonably happy with the transmit performance of the antennas, but the
80M vertical and higher dipole definitely made a noticeable improvement on the
Sunday evening.
I thought conditions on 40M were pretty good. 80M was hard work due to the
severe lightning QRN from nearby storms. 20M was patchy with no sign of the
usual LP opening to UK on Sunday afternoon. I only worked two stations on 15M
(VK6LW and VK3YE). I could hear John VK4CT on 15M but he was not hearing me.
Nothing was heard on 10M.
I ended up making a total of 205 QSOs and a raw score of 3,605 points. This is a
significant improvement over the 109 QSOs and score of 2,195 points that I
achieved in the 2018 contest from our city QTH. The extra effort of setting up a
portable station in a rural area seems to have paid off so I’ll probably do
something similar again next year.
Radio: Flex-6300 100W + WriteLog
Antennas: Saturday night - dipole @ 15mh, Sunday night – dipole @ 20mh + 80M
¼ wave vertical
Thanks again to everyone for the QSOs, and especially those who activated the VK
HQ stations!
73, Brian VK3MI
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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