RSGB 80/40m SSB AFS Contest 2025

Propagation on 40m was variable around the UK&CD with stations well away from the centre of activity reporting difficult band conditions.  It was however very good for some right from the start with the leading stations achieving 150+ contacts in the first hour.  There was little activity on 80m until around 14.30 UTC but most entrants had moved to the lower band by 15.00.  Thereafter it was a case of choosing the right band to keep the scoring rate up.  In the last hour many more Eu stations appear in the logs, in particular those taking part in the HA DX contest running concurrently.  Only a handful of DX contacts were made, all on 40m, with Turkey and Asiatic Russia.

Logs submitted were down by about 10% compared to the last few years, hopefully not a continuing trend.  However, it was good to see an improvement in the standard of logging, in particular there were almost no band errors this year.  The now almost universal use of contest logging software is no doubt the reason for that, for reference the top three loggers utilised were N1MM+ as the most popular, used by 56.5% of entrants, followed by DXLog at 12.5% and SD at 9%.

Congratulations to all the Trophy and certificate winners, as usual certificates have been awarded to the leading three, two and single station teams in both club categories.  The band leaders are Steve GW0GEI (GW9J) with 191 QSOs on 80m and Mark M0DXR (G9W) making 407 QSOs from two sessions on 40m.  Thanks also to all the non-UK stations for their participation and continued support.

This is the penultimate contest in the 24/25 Superleague, the final event is the 432MHz AFS on Sunday 2nd February.

John G4CZB