Contests on 4m have a character all their own. With only the UK within tropo range QSO numbers are quite low and with E's propagation the only real mode available to extend distances, DX is quite rare. This seems to give proceedings a rather gentlemanly quality. As M5MUF noted: Only on 4m do you get contacts saying "We haven't worked before - welcome to the band"! Many people make an effort to get on the band for this contest, either to put in an entry or just give away points. However, sadly, a number of stations seem to come on only to work their own club station, refusing to work anyone else. As QSO's are at such a premium on this band then this habit can also have a noticeable affect on the results. Although no table positions were affected this year, I would like to discourage this rather partisan operation in future.
This years contest was again very well supported, with entries coming in from all ranges of experience, from past winners to 4m rookies. Judging from the comments in the logs (see below) the weather seemed to be very variable over the UK, no surprise there then! It was generally agreed that conditions had been better the day before the contest; certainly the E's was better only a few minutes before. Nevertheless some good contacts were made although scores were well down on last year.
In the Open Section The Five Bells group return to the top of the leader board, with the Northern Lights down to second. Geoff, G3NAQ wins the single operator fixed station section from Roger, G3MEH. The top of the SO section is occupied by two stations from opposite corners of the UK, with Colin, GM4CWH/P in 1st place just ahead of Peter, G4YPC/P in second. Steve, G0AEV gets the certificate for the highest placed entry in the SF section using a single yagi and less than 25w, in his case only 15w!
Pete Lindsay, G4CLA,.
Section M Pos Call Loc Qsos Mults Points Total Best DX Dist Power Ant Group 1* GM4SIV/P IO75DH 70 51 26250 1338750 S51DI 1788 160 2x9 Five Bells 2* GD0EMG IO74QD 73 53 24162 1280586 S51DI 1673 160 2x8 Northern Lights 3 GM3TCU/P IO65VO 45 40 16690 667600 G4YPC/P 678 150 4X6 Kintyre Window Cleaners C.G. 4 G4ADV/P IO70JH 48 37 16227 600399 GM4AFF 745 150 2x7 Newquay & DARS Section SF Pos Call Loc Qsos Mults Points Total Best DX Dist Power Ant 1* G3NAQ IO91HL 56 37 9270 342990 GM4AFF 597 100 7 2* G3MEH IO91QS 52 38 8571 325698 GM4AFF 573 160 2x5 3 G3JYP IO84SN 34 30 8459 253770 G4ADV/P 508 120 8 4 G3WGV IO84QN 32 27 8759 236493 S52SK/P 1598 100 4 5 G0ODQ IO91NQ 41 32 7220 231040 GM4AFF 579 100 5 6 G3IKR IO82XF 37 30 6402 192060 GM4AFF 510 140 4 7 G8SRL JO01ED 31 27 6610 178470 GM3TCU/P 660 100 7 8* G0AEV IO81WL 34 27 6180 166860 GM3TCU/P 532 15 8 9 G3LVP IO81WV 34 26 5223 135798 GM4AFF 547 150 4 10 G3NKS IO81XU 33 27 4842 130734 GM3TCU/P 499 100 6 11 GM4AFF IO86ST 20 16 8068 129088 G4ADV/P 745 70 8 12 M5MUF IO92JP 24 21 4192 88032 GM4SIV/P 418 50 Delta loop 13 G4AFJ IO92HO 23 21 3844 80724 GM3TCU/P 459 130 5 14 G4CZB IO92MF 13 13 1767 22971 GM4SIV/P 463 10 Dipole 15 S51DI JN76VL 3 5 3558 17790 GM4SIV/P 1788 100 8 16 GM4DIJ IO85IW 8 10 1142 11420 GD0EMG 217 50 4 17 M0WYE JO01LE 8 8 1157 9256 GD0EMG 500 10 HB9CV Section SO Pos Call Loc Qsos Mults Points Total Best DX Dist Power Ant 1* GM4CWH/P IO74WV 52 43 15153 651579 G4YPC/P 533 150 5 over 5 + 2 over 2 over 2 over 2 2* G4YPC/P JO00EW 44 44 13639 600116 GM3TCU/P 678 160 8 3 G1EHF/P IO91GI 50 38 8080 307040 GM4AFF 610 30 4 4 G1KHX/P IO81MH 43 34 8209 279106 GM6VXB 712 90 4 5 G4BVY/P IO82TF 39 28 5871 164388 GM4AFF 510 160 7 6 G6GVI/P IO81PH 35 25 5391 134775 GM3TCU/P 530 15 5-ele HB9CV 7 GW3VWH/P IO82LQ 29 25 5096 127400 GM3TCU/P 384 10 3 8 G0PQF/P JO01AX 19 18 3312 59616 GM4SIV/P 530 10 3 9 S52SK/P JN86AI 5 5 3368 16840 G3WGV 1598 100 2x6 10 G3VQO/P IO90QW 2 3 150 450 G3NAQ 80 10 mobile whip
Comments from the logs:
G0PQF: Just out for a bit of fun and to give away points. Hope to have a better set up for next year and be able to put in a more serious entry. Very enjoyable. G1EHF: Band conditions seemed fairly flat with no identifiable tropo or Es. I finished at 13:00z as it had become very slow in the preceding 30 minutes and because both me and the equipment were getting hot in the sun! G3MEH: Conditions above average, especially early on. No Es here, though, and only made two contacts in the last two hours. G3NAQ: Propagation average. No Es heard here. Many new callsigns, not worked before on the band (I counted 19!) but the number of stations worked seems to remain about the same. How can we get them to stay on? Especially no activity hrd from GU,GJ,GI,EI! Didn't take hour off for lunch this year, but could have (3 stations worked between 1 and 2 pm local). Also only 2 stations worked in the last hour, which was a bit tedious! Am uncertain about benefit of the post code multiplier, which seems most benefit to stations living in regions of high population and thus high density of PCs, i.e. in the South East, West Midlands, and North Central/West conurbations. G3VQO: Just a brief diversion to a nearby hill-top on my way home from work. Heard three stations - worked two of them. I don't know where all the others hide!!! G3WGV: Conditions during contest (and any other comments) : Very quiet up in IO84 compared with the old IO91 QTH! Thunderstorm at the start made life difficult. Pity more people won't use CW - there was at least one QSO that I could have completed on CW that failed on SSB. Nice, but very short E opening to S5 provided the best DX, on CW of course. G4BVY: I thought this was meant to be summer! Just a quick play from a local hill top to give some points away. Rumbling thunder throughout. A number of heavy thundery torrentail rain showers - static rain. One hail storm which turned the ground briefly white. Static rain, QRN, high noise levels. Went home in disgust! G4CZB: First 4m contest for many, many years! Rx performance of the FT847 needs some improvement - lost 2 CW QSOs which were marginal and just faded out. More antenna gain would help too! Enjoyable apart from temperature - operating from garden shed which was unbearably hot, had to take lots of breaks to cool off. G6GVI: Thick mist soon dispersed to leave a fine sunny day, but a stiff breeze blew up by lunchtime. Propagation seemed above average, with Scottish and Irish stations being worked on just 15W with hardly any repeats needed G8SRL: Conditions were good to the north, but I did not work any real DX though I had made a contact with S51DI before the contest. I started with a rush working over half my total number of contacts in the first hour. Then it slowed down and the time between my penultimate contact and my final one was 110 minutes. Maybe the swimming pool was a bigger attraction than the shack in this heat, 95F outside and 85F inside my shack. GD0EMG: QSO 061 was OZ to GD first on the 70mhz band GM3TCU: Conditions were poor all day. The evening before the contest ANG, MCB, BUX & MHW were all strong but overnight condx deteriorated. No Es detected at this QTH. At least we escaped the heat by going north! GM4AFF: Propagation was bad, considering how good it had been the day before. G4ADV/P was always audible. Called but failed to work the following: G4YPC/P, G0MJW, G3BPM, M5MUF, G4CZD, G3JDM and a GI. A lot of people heard me, assumed I was someone else and turned their beams (to GW I think) GM4CWH: Fairly slow. No S51s some OZs but couldn't hear them GM4DIJ: Conditions fairly flat, No propagation to South GM4SIV/P, GM3TCU/P and GM4CWH/P loud when beaming at me GM4SIV: A much better year weather-wise, although had quite a lot of the famous "Rolling Mists". Out of the wind, it was a rather nice, sunny day most of the time. However the wind was gusting quite/rather strongly at times and made the antenna erection and dismantling "RATHER INTERESTING"!!! We did not try to venture to the hilltop as last year. Quite a lot of band noise at the start of the contest, clearing later. Nice to work GI3TIJ who nearly fell off his chair whilst eating his lunch as he claimed to have heard nothing on 4m for many years! M0WYE: Was only able to operate for the last two hours due to church commitments. Delighted to work the Isle of man this time, and also to hear GM4SIV/P faintly, first time I have ever heard a GM on VHF at this location. M5MUF: Started off well, with remains of recent tropo conditions, but by 1100utc it had slowed down a lot, and I turned to CW. By 1300utc I was in a thunderstorm (but did that make me stop??) and noise levels rose dramatically, and heard very little thereafter. Missed the S52 station... It was good fun, nicely mannered, time for a quick chat etc, and brought in some new squares and countries. First contest entered from new QTH. When I started I hadn't really intended to make an entry, but thought 24 QSOs justified it! If I'd thought beforehand I'd be entering I'd have wound the power down further to 25W and made it a low power entry. Although 100w available, the power was reduced in the interests of not straining the linear, and of course, the possibility of TVI. Only on 4m do you get contacts saying "We haven't worked before - welcome to the band"! S52SK: Just 30 minutes before contest I worked 5 UK stations via E's. It was good sign for contest but then nothing, only 2 UK station's worked, and another two hrd. Hope that will be better next time.