[UK-CONTEST] UKAC Contests.

[Tony (GW8ASD)]

As you don't appear in my logbook, on any band 6M up to 13cm, I can only
assume that your experiences of VHF/UHF must be prior to 2002?

On 2M, in particular, the last 30mins can be critical.
In my location there is a veritable wall of RF from dozens of local stations
and, often, the only chance of finding some of the more elusive stations is
when the locals stop calling CQ, on their spot frequencies, and go searching
themselves.
Last week in the first hour I worked 34 stations, the second hour 25 but in
the last 30mins I worked 20.
Perhaps more interestingly, km per QSO averaged 186, in the first hour, 205,
in the second hour and 209 for the last 30mins.
The second hour figure would have been much lower except for an unusual
contact with OZ.

Similar situations can arise on the other bands and, whereas I wouldn't
suggest that, thank goodness, there can't be comparisons with HF contests,
the activity levels are rising on all bands.
On 2M, for instance, in 2007 a good entry was 60 stations, with just a
couple of stations topping 100 QSOs.
Now the average is around 140 entries, with many working over 100 stations.
On 23cm the change is even more amazing, rising from 6 entries, and around
15 QSOs, to 60 entries and, 50 QSOs, or more.

On 23cm I limit the use of KST but I do feel, with the very narrow
beamwidths, it does help stations out of the main areas of population and
those running low power, in particular.

The timing seems OK.#
Now if there was just a way to split the 6M sessions and 13cm, and up,
sessions. :-)

Cheers

Tony

GW8ASD
6M, and up, from IO83lb.


-----Original Message-----
From: UK-Contest [mailto:uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
Dave Sergeant
Sent: 11 September 2012 06:57
To: uk-contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] UKAC Contests.

I have not done any of the UKACs for quite a while, being really an HF CW
man and with only a vertical and FT290 for 2m it is not really worth the
effort. But when I did do them, I thought the 10.30pm finish time far too
late - with my set up I had worked everybody I was going to work in the
first hour. The 80m CCs manage quite well with a 90 minute slot and the
sprints are now just 60 minutes which has gone down well with many entrants.

73 Dave G3YMC

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