AFFLIIATED SOCIETIES (AFS) SSB CONTEST, 2003.

A total of 208 stations representing 90 teams took part in SSB AFS this year. This is an increase of about 5% over 2002 and continues the steady growth in popularity of the event. Very nearly 10% of the entrants were Foundation License holders, a five-fold increase on last year!

Litchfield ARS demonstrated its complete mastery of the format by making a clean sweep of the awards. Its ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams took first and second slots with a comfortable lead over De Montfort University in third position. First, second and third places in the individual listings were occupied by G3NLY, G4XUM and GW3YDX, the Litchfield ‘A’ operators in that order.

Certificates of Achievement are awarded to M3ABC and 2E0LIZ as the leading Foundation and Intermediate License holders. Also deserving of special mention is G3JJZ, whose log contained 147 QSOs was completely error-free.

Only a few logs were submitted on paper and around half of the electronic entries were in Cabrillo format. One frequent asked question was how to mark duplicates and points in the new format. The answer is, of course, that you don’t have to, as all dupe-checking and scoring is carried out during the adjudication process.

For some reason, remarks and details of equipment were few and far between this year. Those comments which were included addressed mainly the traditional problems of lack of space, loud signals and receiver overload, and event timing (too early for those in the north, too late for those in the south). Lack of space often precludes of ‘soapbox’ items, but the HFCC values them highly as an important source of feedback.

Steve Knowles, G3UFY.