This was the usual bedlam on 80m, which entrants generally seem to relish!  Nonetheless, the first hour was frantic as usual, with top stations working between 130 and 150 of their fellow competitors.   The total QSO count was 15659, of which the adjudication software was able to check 82%.

A drop in activity compared with last year was noticed, as with the 80m CW AFS contest.  Part of this may be due to variable conditions, and part as a result of the increase in number of various club contests on HF and VHF, at weekends and during the week.  The overall support for club events remains high, and it was encouraging to hear stations being coached in the background as they learnt the skills of contesting, dealing with QRM and congestion.  Perhaps some of them will be motivated to try other contests on their own.

The top position in the Affiliated Society table was taken by Bristol Contest Group, but only by the narrowest of margins over De Montfort University.  The difference between 1st and 2nd place, both teams having made around 1100 QSOs in total, was a matter of 7 QSOs!  The Cray Valley 'A' team were 3rd, with a very respectable score from four members all operating away from home.

In the individual table, GD0EMG, operated by G4XUM, made 320 scoring QSOs -- not a record, but just 4 QSOs ahead of 2nd place, G3ZVW.  G4PIQ and G4ASR were close behind, all having more than 300 QSOs.  Conditions were such that quite a few continental stations were available as darkness fell, many of whom were happy to join the fun and provide a few more contacts -- by this time some entrants were running out of UK stations to work.

This year, entrants will receive UBN reports, which should help them to work out where they are making errors, suggesting areas where improvement is needed.  Occasionally these reports will show that contacts have been disallowed, because the station contacted made a mistake.  For example, a station may send the wrong serial number, recording a different one in the log.  In these and other cases, entrants accept it as part of the good and bad luck inherent in any competition, even if they can show they were not themselves in the wrong.  Sometimes an adjudicator can assess that a sending station has consistently made a error, and this station will be penalised, but there are also occasions where receiving stations have to accept that adjudication can never be perfect and points can be lost through no fault of their own.

Some logs needed extra adjudication work, particularly in requesting Meeting Place information.  Societies with Branches did not always specify the appropriate Branch for each team, which meant that this allocation was made at adjudication time.  However, mention must be made of RAFARS, who were assiduous in specifying their Branches, making things much easier when adjudicating  -- thank you!

Entrants may be interested to know that this is the 20th anniversary of the first SSB AFS on 80m.  The event began in 1992, attracting 58 Affiliated Societies and 139 individuals -- not a bad start for something new.  The top station then made 285 QSOs, which would also be a good score this year.  The winning club made about 760 QSOs with a team size of 3, which would correspond to a total of around 1013 with a team of 4 -- not bad even today!  If you think that results are sometimes slow to come through, be aware that the 1992 results were published in August that year.  A reproduction of the RadCom results is at www.rsgbcc.org/hf/results/80mAFS-SSB-1992-p1.shtml , with CW results at www.rsgbcc.org/hf/results/80mAFS-CW-SSB-1992-p2.shtml for comparison.  You might be amused to see how many of the clubs and individuals are still achieving good results in these two events.

Thanks to everyone for participating and to those who sent checklogs.

Ed Taylor, GW3SQX, adjudicator