[3830] Commonwealth VE7JH(@VE7UF) Open-24 HP

[webform at b41h.net]

                    RSGB Commonwealth Contest

Call: VE7JH
Operator(s): VE7JH
Station: VE7UF

Class: Open-24 HP
QTH: Courtenay, BC
Operating Time (hrs): 22

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
   80:   37
   40:  156
   20:  209
   15:  185
   10:   33
------------
Total:  620  Total Score = 7,550

Club: Orca DX and Contest Club

Comments:

Wow, what great fun BERU 2013 was! 

My first serious entry into this contest. I asked my fellow Vancouver Islander
Duane, VE7UF if I could use his station for BERU 2013 and he graciously
accomodated me. I used the Multi/Multi setup of four radios, so QSY-ing was a
breeze. There is kW on all bands and several large arrays of antennas.

You can see my SH5 stats at http://members.shaw.ca/ve7dxg/contests/sh5/ 

Being High Power I mainly called CQ with one antenna to the East towards G-land
and VE3, while the other was looking for my friends Down Under.

80m started out good but at the end the QRN was awful, I stopped CQ-ing because
I had no idea if there were callers. Only Caribbean and Canada on 80m with the
exception of ZS1EL who must be a very patient person to stick it out with me
through the noise.
40m was great fun. I had two 2el Yagis at my disposal. It was the most
productive band to Oceania with 9 ZL and 23 VK stations. There was some QRM
from JA but the guys Down Under know how to work under less than optimal
conditions. There were a lot of UK stations calling me on 40m, unfortunately
many signals were covered by the noise and I had a hard time putting callsigns
together. My apologies for asking repeats in almost every QSO, I just wanted to
make sure both sides have everything right.
20m yielded the greatest number of UK stations, boy I had no idea there were so
many G-landers to be worked in a contest. Also plenty of GI/GM/GW and even a GU
made it into the log.
15m was fantastic, great signals from the UK without the Arctic flutter we
often get here by the time the signal makes it from the British Isles to ours
in the Pacific Ocean. Plenty of VK/ZL activity on 15m too.
10m kept me checking often to see what's going on. I managed to make two
contacts to the UK, a few to the Caribbeans and 10 to VK/ZL.

I must also mention the great activity from Canada, I logged 209 QSOs from
VE-land, second only to the 293 from the UK. All provinces were represented to
give me plenty of 25 point QSOs. Australia came in 3rd with 52, New Zealand at
24 and the Republic of South Africa with 6.
Special thanks to all the HQ stations active (VU2PTT, GB5CC, ZL6HQ, VA3RAC,
VE1RAC, VE7RAC and VO1RAC) padding the points column. 
The Caribbean guys while few in numbers made up for it with all-band activity
yielding about 20 QSOs.
I worked 26 DXCCs, places like 5B, 5N, 7Q, 9H, 9M2, 9M6, 9X and ZB are not ones
I hear every day. 

The BERU is a fun contest for us in this corner of the world. It's like a US
QSO Party, except world-wide. No packed bands, no QRM, yet pleny of activity to
keep you hopping. Oh, and if you happen to doze away for 45 minutes you don't
feel guilty, HI.

See you all in 2014!


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