[UK-CONTEST] P3J - Commonwealth Contest 2007

[Alan Jubb - 5B4AHJ]

Hi
Here is my info for CC 2007 (Open section) with 2006 for comparison. Raw scores after fixing WL scoring errors similar to those reported by ZL6QH.

2007      QSOs     BCAs
80m        75          20
40m      265          56
20m      318          63
15m      225          26
10m         2            2
Total    884        167   7760

2006      QSOs     BCAs
80m        50          11
40m      284          48
20m      282          55
15m      139          14
10m         4            4
Total    759         134  6300


I'm very happy to have beaten last year's score (which resulted in 3rd place) by a good margin, but from the serials I was hearing, I think I'll be dropping a few places on the leader-board this year! Congrats to Dave J88DR who is one that has overhauled me (he was one place behind me last year).

I was QRV from the station of 5B4AGN (thanks Bob). I did a lot of work with W6ELProp prior to the contest and it looked as though there was a reasonable chance of 10m QSOs with much of E and S Africa as well as the Indian Ocean in the first 2 hours and the last hour of the contest, but only 7Q7BP and 9J2BO were worked. I QSY'd to 10m a number of times for various G's but not a whisper was heard. I couldn't even manage a Q with ZC4LI on 10m.

80m was a bit of a nightmare as Bob has an intermittent line noise problem which manifested itself late Saturday night. Apologies and thanks to all those stations who gave repeated repeats of their exchange so that I could copy through the QRN. Like Jim, I suffered a couple of times from "assistance", but continued to persevere until I copied the serial myself, so I reckon those Qs should count.

I agree with those who said that EU non Commonwealth ops were generally well behaved, although I did suffer a little from persistent callers. Also on one occasion I suffered deliberate and persistent QRM from an SP on 40m. I had been on the QRG for some time CQing (after a QRL?) when the SP started making comments like "Sick contest" and "Read the rules". Someone (I assume a G, and thanks to him) explained that I was causing QRM to a DX station (which was inaudible to me), at which point I QSY'd.

Anyhow, a great and enjoyable contest. There were many unfamilar G calls worked this year (presumably as a result of the RadCom article). I was still getting '001' serials from Gs late in the contest (one at 0957!). I shall be back nest year, hopefully this time from my own QTH.

Now for 9M4SDX!

73

Alan 5B4AHJ