[UK-CONTEST] BERU 2006 - G3LET

[Peter Hobbs]

Well Murphy usually seems to be active during BERU, although in this case Don had a  reasonable excuse!  My attack was more down to sheer carlessness.  Having welcomed and prepared for the new version of SDC, I was all set with latest BERY.cty, hand-crafted master.dta and tailored SD.ini files and had double checked the lap-top noise level the previous weekend.  This had only been a problem on 10 and 15 anyway and I'd fixed the offending PSU months ago.  What I hadn't thought significant was a last minute change to the HDD to give enough recording memory for 24 hours of contest.  However be warned - any disk activity produced S5 -7 noise of a particularly annoying type and I only discovered this at 0830 on Saturday morning!

Conditions were very typical of low numbers and even 80 closed early to E-W propagation, resulting in wonderful Caribbean signals but the VEs were hard to attract without an outstanding signal.  10 deteriorated steadily during the first morning, but by concentrating on it right at the start I did find a few extra bonuses.  GB5CC and 5B/G4ODV were the only 5-banders this year.  Brian was an amazingly consistent signal wherever I looked throughout the event.  Good short path opening to VK/ZL on 80 and on 40 ZL6QH was booming in from 15Z.  The morning LP openings were also excellent, but frustrating as I'd swept up most of the CQing types the previous evening.

QSOs came mostly from S&P although I did a lot of fruitless CQing to fill the time.  Pinching callers from BUO, BJ and POI by sliding them up a kc or so was quite successful though, or perhaps I'm just getting better at it!

Summary:

222 QSOs
3 dupes
172 bonus:
    80 - 28
    40 - 61
    20 - 60
    15 - 18
    10 - 5
Total score  4,535

Kit - K2/100 with GP and sloping wire antennas.

Thanks to all participants for another very enjoyable BERU.  I did consider the 12 hour section but what a waste - it only comes round once a year!

Peter G3LET