[UK-CONTEST] GB5HQ

[Peter Hobbs]

Well, my apologies for stirring up such a hornets nest among the HQ participants.  Perhaps this was inevitable given the timing of my post, which should of course have been input a little later, to concide with a considered post mortem.  I guess this was pretty inexcusable.  I certainly had (have) no wish to denigrate the effort and investment put in by all those concerned  with GB5HQ, rather to highlight a few points which were self-evident to an uninvolved observer (and which have been largely confirmed, by the way, in several of the subsequent postings).  

By way of excuse, or rather, reason behind it - at work, we invariably debrief the customer after a big tender has gone in and pass their comments on the bid to our proposal team in short order, with a view to identifying opportunities for improvement.  In this case, away from home, with time on my hands and setting out to work GB5HQ on the 12 band slots, I was one of GB5HQ's customers (Chris, you'll identify with this concept!).  The main real-time criterion for assessing a front-line station is how quick and easy it is to find and work compared with its competitors.  Stations that score well in this department tend to win contests.  ANY suggestion that might assist in that aim, even if unpalatable, should be at least considered.  Dave, perfectly reasonably, has requested constructive detail off-list.

Regards (and thanks for the GB5HQ QSOs!)

Peter G3LET