The First Hope QSO Party - an overview

The key objective of this series was to entertain and support our members and others who are currently staying at home.  It was styled as a party - a social event where people turn up to enjoy themselves - rather than a contest, and it was good to see so many colleagues register their attendance by submitting logs for adjudication, often for a single or small number of events.  The number of entries in the tables below by no means reflects the true level of participation, however, despite poor propagation on the higher bands largely limiting the scope of activity to Europe, with many other callsigns appearing in the logs.

241 DX stations from 34 DXCCs and 285 domestic stations submitted logs for adjudication.  It was especially good to see several people 'dipping their toes' into contesting for the first time.

In the event, this proved to be a 'pick and mix' party.  On the one hand, 59% (311) of entries were for a single mode: at the other extreme, 32 stalwarts were listed in the tables of all four modes.  Even for those who partied the hardest, participating in all of the 30 day-time sessions was always going to be a challenge, especially for those working (as well as self-isolating) at home and so it was that only three stations - G4OZG, G6XX, and ON6NL troubled the adjudicators on every day. It is perhaps no co-incidence that two of these find themselves at the top of the tables. Many congratulations to Nick (UK High Power) and Anton (DX Low Power) who between them won 28 section sessions outright.

Runner Up in the domestic table was Tim G4ARI (who only operated in three of the four modes) with Nigel G3TXF in third place.  In the DX section, Dennis W1UE managed a very creditable second place, giving many of us a welcome multiplier from across the pond, and Alex YO9HP took the final podium place. Phil 2E0ZDX and Jonathon M7RSC were the highest placed UK Intermediate and Foundation Licence holders.

It all starts again on Monday 18th May and we look forward to scrutinising your logs again during the next six weeks.

73 The Adjudicators