[UK-CONTEST] BERU dead?

[philhss at tesco.net]

> 
> From: "Gerard Lynch" <gerrylynch at freenetname.co.uk>
> 
> By the way, I was amazed to find that VK2BAA was running QRP - great job, you were a good 569 here but didn't hear me CQing apparently.  :-(((

Sorry to have missed you, Gerard! 

The amount of QRN at my end was simply unbelievable. 10m and 15m were quiet and relatively noise free - but dead. 20m was noisy and so was 40m. 
My 80m short-vertical blew down the morning of the contest - remember, that VK is 11 hours ahead of G at this time. Hence, I played with wires for most of the day to try and get onto the band (with very limited success!) then sat down mid/late evening to start the contest.
To put it mildly, I struggled in Beru and had to fight for most QSOs. I'm glad I installed Inrads into my rig last week! I tried CQing for a while, to no avail, so my QSOs were pretty much all S&P. I didn't operate full time and managed only 60 QSOs. Basically, I worked all that I could hear, then had a break, then went back to the rig to see if anyone 'new' had appeared on the bands.

I've been tweaking my antenna 'system' for some time now, so I'm delighted to hear that it seems to be doing a good job!

QRP is hard work, so I need all the help I can get!

Cheers,

Phil Smeaton
VK2BAA