21/28 MHz Contest 2011

After many years in the doldrums, 28 MHz finally came good in 2011 with some healthy QSO totals from the UK into all continents and in particular sustained runs into North America.  Similarly many Overseas stations found plenty of UK multipliers on the band.  21MHz offered contacts throughout the day to the UK, still going strong at 1859 to North and South America for the Open section stations, less so in the Restricted section but for most still worthwhile staying on to the end.  Entrants in the UK QRP section found it much harder going in the afternoon with not many stations being logged after 1500.

Leading the UK Open section and winner of the Whitworth Trophy is Chris Smith MI0LLL and Chris also takes the Powditch Trophy for the highest score on 28MHz regardless of mode. The T E Wilson G6VQ Trophy goes once again to David Cree G3TBK for the highest single operator score using CW only.  This year there were a number of mixed-mode multi-operator entries and a certificate is awarded to the Tall Trees Contest Group M0TTG, in second place overall, operated by G8APB, G3UJE and G3VDB.  The single operator mixed-mode award goes to Peter Day G3PHO.

In the UK Restricted section Peter Hobbs G3LET takes the top spot with a CW only entry, Dave Bates G0LZL (mixed-mode) in second place and the highest SSB score was made by Lionel Roithmeir MU0GSY.

Well ahead of the pack in the UK QRP section and with the advantage of a two element quad was Steve Brumby G0DCK using mixed-mode, Bill Tracey GM4UBJ is in second place (CW only) and Mike Pugh G4VPD finding QRP SSB hard going but gaining a certificate.

In the Overseas Open section there was a close finish between Konstantin Kuptsov RL9AA and Steve Hodgson ZC4LI (CW only) with Konstantin's mixed-mode entry having the advantage of a greater multiplier score.  Mitrut Marius YO3CZW takes the certificate for the highest SSB score.

Mixed-mode was the popular choice of the leading stations in the Overseas Restricted section with RM5D (multi-op) and Valery Bobrov RW3AI (single-op) taking the honours.  Matija Vierda 9A3VM is the leading CW station and Gheorghita  Herghelegiu YO8THG leads the SSB entrants.

Rumen Stefanov LZ2RS using only 21MHz mixed-mode had an unassailable lead in the Overseas QRP section, Ruslan Samkov UR5IRM had the highest CW score and finally Pawel Wasniowski SQ9IAU takes the SSB certificate.  28MHz proved unproductive for most entrants in this section.

Log keeping this year was generally good, although some logs, both UK and Overseas, had obvious errors in the tabulated mode which would have been spotted by checking the log before submission.  These errors resulted in a significant loss of points.  Some logs had to be relegated to checklogs as there was too much missing or corrupted data which again would have been detected by inspection. The robot does flag these so do not ignore warnings. Callsign and RST errors were fairly low this year which is an encouraging improvement; even a single error can be costly if a multiplier is lost.  As always don't assume a 59 or 599 report or log an improbable country prefix.

Thanks to DL7LZ G0GFQ G3VQO G3XMM G4EDR G8JYV GM4SSA GM4ZUK GW0ETF LZ1GE LZ2STO M0KIS M0TQR R2SA RA6HSM RX6MR UA4AGO UA9LGD UN7EX UX7UN WK5DX for their useful checklogs.

John Cockrill G4CZB