[3830] BERU 2000 - VE2ZP Open category (Long)

[Dave]

Here is my BERU claimed score after cleaning up the log:

    Band  QSOs  Bonuses  Score
     80     75     28      935
     40    157     44     1665
     20    228     63     2400
     15    222     42     1970
     10     46     39     1020
    ---    ---    ---     ----
    All    730    216     7970

This was a personal best score and perhaps the most enjoyable
BERU for me to date.  Last year, such a score would have placed
me fourth in the Open category.  With great scores coming from
5B4AGC, ZF2NT, 9G5VJ, VP5C and VE3EJ, I'm quite certain I won't
do quite that well.

While conditions on 10 and 80 were difficult, there was no
shortage of activity and many people were quite willing to change
bands for additional bonus QSOs.

On the subject of conditions,I spoke with John VE3EJ the day
before the contest and we both were quite excited about how good
the conditions had been in the preceding week and expected grand
things come 1200 GMT Saturday.  When I went to bed, I switched on
my bedside SW receiver only to hear the BBC World Service
sounding distinctly auroral.  This was not a good sign, I
thought.  Getting up the next morning, and in the shack by 1130
GMT, the bands all sounded awful.

I started by calling CQ on 20m and learning to search-and-pounce
simulateously with the second rig on 15.  Working VK6LW long path
for my first QSO raised my spirits somewhat and to my surprise I
was able to maintain a reasonable QSO rate during the first three
hours of the contest, keeping almost exclusively to 15 and 20m.
Having the second transceiver was wonderful in that I could check
conditions on other bands without dropping my run frequency.

At 1503, Gary VE2GK, my closest ham neighbour and the operator of
HQ station VA2RAC, called in and inside three minutes, Gary
obligingly gave me bonus QSOs on all five bands.  Again, having
the second rig really sped this process and I was able to hold my
15m run frequency while doing all the band-hopping with the other
rig.  VA2RAC made about 80 QSOs in this contest.

As things slowed down a bit after 1600 GMT, hunting for bonuses
became my mission and I began begging for band changes from just
about everyone outside Ontario and the UK.  Being a comparatively
rare VE2 might have made these propositions more attractive for
some, so I can say at least one good thing about living in
Quebec.  This is income tax time, however, so I will restrict
myself to that one good thing.

With one or two very short periods of calling CQ, 10m became
strictly a band for schedules for me.  The Gs were few in number
and quite weak and I was even worried that I might fail to find
three.  I later learned from John VE3EJ that he heard Gs best at
a bearing ninety degrees to the south of normal.

ZL1MH called me on 15m at the rather early hour of 1520 GMT,
which my DX Edge tells me is a good hour before sunrise in
Auckland.  ZL2BR entered my 10m log at 1800 GMT, right about his
sunrise.  These were indications that conditions were better than
I feared.  As time wore on, I found many more ZLs and VKs on 10
than I found Gs.  The absence of Gs on 10m was offset by how
plentiful they were on 15 and 20m.

Twenty metres was a great place for running, finding bonuses and
begging for band changes.  It seemd to be open everywhere all the
time.

Most years, I would often begin BERU on 40, as the contest begins
about an hour after sunrise here in the Ottawa area.  That can be
a great time to round up some ZLs and VKs.  This time, I gave 40
a pass and with the exception of a couple of skeds, I ignored 40m
until after 2220 GMT.  Then, the band was in great shape to the
UK, and the Gs rapidly filled the log.  Forty metres became the
low band of choice simply because 80m was not only in marginal
shape, but because of the high levels of precipiation static and
other irritations made 80m a painful place to be.

For a change, the second half of the contest was quite busy for
me, providing about one-third of my QSOs.  Whether it was the
excitment of all that activity or the diversion of using a second
transceiver, there were NO overly-quiet boring times for me.

One nice change for me this year was the number of VK5s, 6es and
7s.  VK4s were plentiful, as always, but VK2s and VK3s seemed
unusually scarce.  Also, I never heard a ZL3 or ZL4.  I do wish
the ZSes would come rejoin the contest now that their country has
rejoined the Commonwealth.  There was plenty of VE activity and I
worked four Canadian HQ stations alone.  The younger Commonwealth
countries were not much in evidence this time, sad to say, but
there's always next year.

I used 9H1EL's CTJ program.  It is a good program, but there are
a few bugs that I hope Jeff with examine.

First, let me go to the praise:
- It closely resembles CT, my preferred software
- It sends CW through an LPT port
- It is generally quite easy to use
- It's free
- It does a good job of tracking needed QSOs and bonuses

Now, the problems:
- When you send CW with CTJ, your PC clock slows down just
slightly.  Send a lot of CW using the computer and you'll lose
2.5 minutes per hour. I reset my clock every hour just to keepmy
log close to the right time.
- It has some trouble identifying some stations, viz:
  - It counted ZM1s as ZS1s, but ZM2s as being outside the
Commonwealth.
  - It refused to accept ZS0E and J6/K4WA as being in
Commonwealth countries.
  - It refused to accept VE7CC as being in the Commonwealth on
20, but accepted him on all the other bands.
- If you entered a partial call sign, then used the spacebar to
just to the serial number received field, you could not return to
the callsign field unless you hit the "tab" key a few times. Once
you did, it would insert newly-typed characters to the right of
the cursor, not above it.  If you did succeed in typing in a good
call sign and hit enter, you would lose the other station's
serial number.
- It accepted a space as a character in a call sign and it was
murder to get it out.
- In editing QSOs, you have to navigate through a pop-up screen
and scroll to the field you want to modify.  If it doesn't like
your changes (especially to "bonus" flags), it refuses them.
-  As you enter each call sign, a little window tell you whether
you need that station for a bonus or regular QSO on some other
band.  However, once you complete the QSO, this window might tell
you that you have worked that station on five bands, but that you
have none of the bonuses for that station's call area.  That pop-
up window is great, but it just doesn't work reliably.

In spite of my complaints,I would use CTJ again.  It really
helped me stay aware of what bonuses I needed.

Now to wait for the results.

73,

Dave VE2ZP




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