[UK-CONTEST] G3LET Jubilee SOCW

[Peter Hobbs]

RSGB Jubilee Contest

Call: G3LET

Class: SOCW HP
QTH: Pease Pottage, West Sussex
Operating Time (hrs): ~23.5 

Summary:
  Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   80:   41     4
   40:  204    11
   20:  442    20
   15:  351    20
   10:  152     8
-------------------
Total: 1190    63

Total Score = 374,850

Kit:-
TenTec Omni VI+ with TenTec amp
260ft tree-supported sloping wire, fed with open wire as it passes over the shack
UA1AAF ARI contest logger with modified mult file

Having down-loaded the logger and carefully edited the CTY file, I chickened out (again) of using a real-time log program to key 'on-air' and printed out a set of log & dupe sheets for a manual entry.  But after 300 QSOs and only a handful of mults it was clearly going to be all run and I couldn't face  another 20 hours of mainly Europeans so fired up the lap-top.  Partly I have to say, having read some of the comments here, in order to be in a position to comment on (or be surprised by) the quality of the '50 mult' paperwork.  So, apologies to any readers of this forum who had to hang around while a tyro keyboard operator tried to cope....

That said, I must agree with Clive that the support from the ROW, especially the E Europe boys, was quite amazing and a pretty thankless time many of them must have had, with only a hundred or so mainly G QSO's to show for their 24 hours.  I spent quite a bit of time poking around for mults but those that were around seemed to be mostly calling G's rather than running EU.

As a one-off to demonstrate that we're not an entirely insular bunch, and give an airing to the special calls, it was clearly successful, but I really can't see it surviving as a regular long-term event unless there are some radical changes.  With hind-sight, some sort of incentive to work the mult stations is a must; after all why bother with chasing VK/ZL when a G or (for us) a DL earns you the same points after the first (mult) QSO.  And it's difficult to see the ROW support being maintained without a bit more interest for them.  It may be an unfashionable view and therefore not universally admitted, but the evidence from this weekend suggests that many of the Commonwealth BERU faithful needed to support a Jubilee style contest just prefer the original formula.

73

Peter G3LET

PS.  I was delighted to be called by a watery VR2 early this morning on 15 only to learn later that this is now Hong Kong and not Fiji.  I can understand a new allocation was needed to replace VS6, but why re-use one from the old Commonwealth series?


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