[UK-CONTEST] 21/28 Contest - G3VER

[David]

Very slow contest to start with and most of those were more interested in
TRC than the RSGB contest. Picked up in the afternoon. SFI at 98 did not
help. Testing the day before GX3VER was working a nice range of DX.

It did pick up in the afternoon but rate was generally at the I am bored
level of operating. I guess should have encouraged our VHF ops rather than
our HF Ops to operate as they are more used to slow rates. However VHF Ops
do not work CW...  One upside we had a CW training computer running and we
got a fair amount of interest in that from new to CW ops plus some who had
passed 12WPM to get the HF ticket but rather rusty.

The discussion among the VARC operators, and we had a good many of them, was
RSGB have missed the boat on reforming this contest others have now muscled
in on it and will be using this weekend for the long haul. We felt that this
will be particularly so for the TRC contest as this is on their national
day.

I think the days of RoW works UK stations contests are long gone. It needs
to be a everyone works everyone with additional mults for working UK
stations. Given relatively low UK activity levels nearly every UK station
worked will result in a PD (Post District) mult. With computer adjudication
the overhead is a lot lower than it used to be.

73 David G3YYD
Verulam ARC