RSGB  SSB Field Day 2014

As so often seems to be the case, SSB Field Day proved to be an event of extremes.

“Our best ever FD” (G0IVR/P).  “Our lowest score for many years” (G3TBK/P).  

Most teams reported good weather.  However,  the UK Islands Group (on Farne Island) suffered a lightning storm and gales which blew down their antennas, not to mention a storm tide which forced them to move the station.  Add to that the failure of two generators and a backup battery and it’s little short of a miracle that they were able to compete at all.

There was, however, pretty much universal agreement regarding radio conditions:  **censored**!  

It’s nice to welcome Horndean & DARC back into the fold, with their first entry since 2005, but it was disturbing to note an overall reduction in the number of entries, in both sections, of about 25% from the 2013 level.  It’s rather disappointing, considering that the event is increasing in popularity in Europe.  There is, however, hope for the future in the substantial number of Foundation and Intermediate Class licensees appearing in the lists of operators.

And so to the adjudication:  

Logging standards were generally very good (in some cases, excellent).  It was notable that the major UK players with non-‘G’ callsigns were the victims of ‘Insurance QSOs’ from the EU contingent, as indicated by the high level of duplicates in their logs. (Adjudicator’s tip:  ALWAYS work and log a duplicate – it’s quicker than arguing and it costs you nothing!)  

As in previous years, the IARU Region 1 Societies shared their logs for checking.  So rather than just having only our 42 UK logs we had access to the logs of a total of 388 competitors throughout Region 1, recording not only QSOs with UK stations, but also those made amongst themselves and with non-competitors.  These logs yielded 113,750 checkable contacts between competitors (including those providing checklogs), and a further 162,925 contacts with a total of 6292 casual participants.  Checking software constructed ‘Virtual Logs’ for those casual participants, enabling reliable checking for busted calls/serial numbers etc.

Quite apart from the time involved in investigating all the flagged anomalies in the UK logs, each full run through the computer took in excess of 2hrs 15mins and four were required.  Which is why the results, like Spring, ‘will be a little late this year’ (apologies to Ella Fitzgerald et al).

In the Open Section, the Northern Lights Contest Group, GD0EMG/P, take first place (and the Northumbria Trophy) from runners-up Wisbech Amateur Radio and Electronics Group G1WRC/P.  In third place are the Three As Contest Group GW0AAA/P.

In the Restricted Section, honours (and the G3PSH Memorial Trophy) go to MW1LCR/P who narrowly failed to beat the record score for a single-operator restricted station.  Reading & DARC, G3ULT/P, were runners-up in this section and Worthing & DARC took third place.

Steve Knowles, G3UFY

Adjudicator

g3ufy@rsgbcc.org