[UK-CONTEST] 144 UK AC

[Ray James]

Happy 2009 to one and all.

Having finished work on the new H-frame mounted 2m/70cm system I thought it would be a good opportunity to see how different the Contest Committee's new rules for 2009 would impact the first event of the year.

I was present for the full duration to give points/multipliers away.
As the health of weak signal use of the UK VHF and above spectrum has been a concern, also how our contest rules encourage or dis-courage support, I opted to experiment on this occasion.
The antennas never looked to the south east for the first hour as I used this time to establish what support could be found in GM and GI. EI would also have been a beneficiary of my beaming at EI.

The overall result was 14 GM's worked, 1 gotaway and two other known to be active but not heard. One of the latter was GM0HTT in Orkney. The furthest north I worked was Stirlingshire, nothing from the east coast centres of activity from Edinburgh through to Aberdeen.
Despite lots of CQ's towards GI/EI....zilch, though I gathered after the event that at least one station was on from each country.
The remainder of the event was spent either listening across the band to white noise, interspersed with a few local operators and any G/GW who was calling up country and one PA0 just as he turned his antenna and was heard no more! Running produced a fair number of contacts down into JO01, IO91 and IO81 with a sprinkling of contacts to be found in the midlands and north of England/Wales. A local "spotted" me in the last half hour and that had an expected result! It was also interesting to note how no G's were spotting other G's, only EU's were spotting G's. I spotted a few locals who I know would be entering but this whole cluster/KST position must be raising quite a few wry smiles and head shaking over the channel! 

Have the Contest Committee's new UKAC rules helped?
Have the CC inspired UKAC activity from all over the UK?
Are the CC putting UK VHF+ interests first?

On the basis of last night's event, not in the slightest.

73 Ray GM4CXM IO75TW GS

400w + 2x9 @ 70' + LNA