[UK-CONTEST] Beru 2006 - G4BUO

[Donald Field]

I rather suspect that participation from VK, ZS, maybe even VE, will
continue to decline rapidly. Who saw the news report from VK last night
asking Aussies on the beach "who is visiting this Australia this week?"
Most guessed "Kelly Holmes" and similar but not spotted that it was the
Queen. Unless you are an ex-G, BERU probably has less and less resonance
nowadays. I once asked ZS6EZ whether he would ever contemplate
participating in BERU and got a very rude answer (as far as he is
concerned, as an Afrikaaner, the xxxx English drove the Dutch settlers
inland from the coast (remember the Voortrekkers?) and are to be treated
with contempt) :-) Even Canadians seem to have less and less interest in
the motherland (and French Canadians probably not at all).

So, much as it's a shame, because this is an interesting contesting
event, I suspect it will rely increasingly on being supported by ex-G's
(just look at 5B4AGC, P3J, 5B/G4ODV, G3PJT on his annual travels, etc.)
and a few would-be colonials (ZF2NT, alias N6NT, still penitent from
1776 :-)). Whether this number will hold steady or decline depends, I
imagine, on the continuing propensity of G's to buy retirement
properties on the remaining "pink bits" or to jump on planes mid-March
each year. Please tell me I'm wrong!

Don G3XTT 

-----Original Message-----
From: uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Dave Lawley
Sent: 12 March 2006 21:35
To: UK Contest Reflector
Subject: [UK-CONTEST] Beru 2006 - G4BUO

Commiserations to Don with his snow static problem. It was a tough fight

with him and Andy G3AB. Murphy also visited with a noise problem on 80m 
and very bad mutual interference between 40 and 80, which resolved 
itself somehow in the early hours of the morning. This is going to make 
it extra hard to track down the root cause of the problem. Nice to get a

couple of VKs and 9M2 on 15m in the last 15 minutes.

There are plenty of events for those who like wham-bam rate contests, I 
believe there will be yet another one along next weekend. It would be a 
shame if there was not room in the calendar for a different sort of 
event in which you have to keep thinking, moving, probing all the time.

Even at the bottom of the cycle the activity level seemed generally good

and varied but I am concerned at the steep decline in participation from

VK. Unfortunately the effect multiplies: the fewer VKs that participate,

the harder it is for the others to turn in good results but only a few 
years ago VK4XA, VK4EMM and VK2BJ all put in top scores. My perception 
is that VK is not as prominent as ZL in other major contests as well so 
I don't think the problem is unique to Beru, though its effects may be.

With the default 10 minute off time threshold in Win-Test it reckons I 
was off for 9 hours, but apart from three trips down the garden to 
fiddle with the beverage termination, I was in the chair just about the 
whole time:

BAND   QSO DUP DXC  HQ  POINTS BONUS   AVG
--------------------------------------------
    80    43   0  17   5     215   640 19.88

    40    85   0  29   6     425  1260 19.82

    20   122   1  35   8     610  1380 16.31

    15    37   0  21   3     185   640 22.30

    10     5   0   4   1      25   100 25.00
--------------------------------------------
TOTAL   292   1 106  23    1460  4020 18.77
============================================
             TOTAL SCORE : 5480


Ten-Tec Omni D + Ten-Tec Titan
FT1000MP + Dentron MLA2500
Homebrew SO2R box (soon to be replaced!)
Win-Test 2.28
10m 4el up 78ft
15m 4el up 83ft, delta loop
20m 4el up 73ft, 4el up 38ft fixed NW
40m 4-square
80m delta loop
220ft beverage


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