[UK-CONTEST] Commonwealth Contest - G4BUO

[Dave Lawley]

Some tough competition in G this year, which will contribute to a very 
good Team UK score. Congrats to Don G3BJ, I very nearly caught him on 
QSOs but importantly he's seven bonuses ahead.

Conditions were worse than last year, which hardly seemed possible. Only 
VEs on 15 were VO1MP and VE3EJ. Unlike Don I worked my quota of VE7s on 
20m, but struggled to work one on 40 and one on 80m. I think my main 
problem was lack of African contacts on the low bands.

Everything worked ok, and it turned out the problem with my rotator was 
apparently in the control box not up the tower, needing only a smart tap 
on the box to get it pointing in the right direction.

I was nicely set up for the Sunday morning long path on 80m to ZL, and 
worked ZL1AZE exceptionally early at 05:47, but a little later while I 
was struggling to copy the exchange from VE1EP, F5IN landed himself on 
the frequency. This was deliberate QRM, he knew what he was doing and 
would not listen to my requests to QSY. With time running out for LP 
QSOs I could not stay to fight it out, but this rude, ignorant bullying 
by F5IN left a nasty taste.

Noticeable was an almost complete lack of long path to VK/ZL on 40 and 
20m, or maybe it was just I had already worked most of them on the short 
path. Years ago VK3s made up the main Australian contingent in Beru, now 
they are very rare but it was a great pleasure to work long-time 
supporter of the contest Mavis, VK3KS. My single VK5 QSO was with the 
solar powered station of VK5SW.

  BAND   QSO DUP DXC  HQ  POINTS BONUS   AVG
--------------------------------------------
    80    79   0  27   5     395  1020 17.91
    40   119   1  39   6     595  1440 17.10
    20   134   4  38   8     670  1500 16.19
    15    29   0  20   1     145   560 24.31
    10     1   0   0   1       5    20 25.00
--------------------------------------------
TOTAL   362   5 124  21    1810  4540 17.54
============================================
             TOTAL SCORE : 6 350

Ten-Tec Omni D + Ten-Tec Titan amplifier, FT1000MP + Ten-Tec Centurion 
amplifier, 10m 4el up 77ft, 15m 4el up 82ft, 20m 4el up 72ft, delta 
loop, 40m 4 square, 80m delta loop, 230ft unterminated beverage, 
Win-Test 3.24

Dave G4BUO