[UK-CONTEST] 4m Trophy

[Andy GD0TEP]

As everyone appears to be chipping in with their own two penethworth, here's
my view:

With sporadic E on 4m, those who are lucky enough to be in the thick of it,
can run up a very respectable log with contacts over an ever increase
European population (4m wise), and I have to admit, there is some fun
running a bit of a pile up in a contest working stuff you'd have never of
heard on 4m a few years back.

The other side of that coin though is how do you operate when the band is
flat as a pancake? Well, that brings in yet another skill set of listening
to those stations with 5w to a dipole in the attic, tying to convince them
to persevere with the QSO under difficult conditions, sometime taking around
5 minutes to complete. Other times having to give up because the other guy
gave up after two tries and then insists you're deaf! It's times like those
that CW comes in to its own, but even then it still isn't easy. It takes
time and knowledge of 4m to understand how fickle the band can be at times.
The same can be said for MS QSOs, some times working other stations on tropo
in between an ongoing MS QSO...

I have no preference of one month over the other, I'll take part in any
event providing family life doesn't get in the way like it did this year...

Finally... both the 6m and 4m Trophy in the same weekend... this has come up
before, I was against it then, and nothing has changed. We simply don't have
the manpower resources to cover both in the same weekend, besides, isn't 6
and 4m in the same weekend covered by VHF field day?

73,
Andy
http://gd0tep.com