[UK-CONTEST] BERU - G3LET

[Peter Hobbs]

Wow - a very interesting mix, with even less HF propagation than last year, or so it appeared from here.  The result looks like being close in all respects.  I think Nigel 'TXF must have suffered some unfortunate event, as he disppeared for quite a long time over night and wasn't on 80 when he should have been, thereby losing some minutes while I waited for him to appear!  Anyway, I hope it was just a power issue Nigel and nothing more.

Hadn't decided how to play it this year, but the lack of much sign of activity on 10 or 15 in the first hour made it easy - either a shedload of fruitless CQing or just do the 12 hours (high power).  As things turned out, there was very little overall difference in QSOs or bonuses compared to last year's full time entry and no spare time during the active periods at all.

Taken from the dupe/bonus sheets, to be confirmed eventually by SD:

80 - 49/37
40 - 85/62
20 - 91/62
15 - 15/15
10 - 1/1
Total: 4,745

plus one dupe (that I know about!).  A distinct swing in the LF direction, with more ZLs on 80 in the scraps of time left by the morning than I've found before.

I reverted to the Orion for this one, with the usual BiggIR elevated vertical and sloping wire antennas.  The recently laid extra radials (a mix of 80 and 160 lengths) helped a lot with rf in the shack and I seemed to have less bother cracking the 80m pile-ups than in previous years.

The new VU team was very successful.  Some members weren't quite confident yet to do much CQing but I think I heard them all at one time or another, apart from the 4S7.  AP2NK on 4 bands made up for that.

Many thanks to the HFCC and Bob G3PJT, who have spent so much time and effort ensuring that BERU remains an event to be truly savoured.  This year was no exception.

73, Peter G3LET