[UK-CONTEST] 144 UK AC

[David Ferrington, M0XDF]

Did I miss something here, do the new rules allow for spotting on a  
DxCluster?
-- 
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them,  
and
pretty soon you have a dozen.
--John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)

On 7 Jan 2009, at 14:50, Ray James wrote:

>
> 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.