After two years of dreadful conditions in this contest, 2001 marked an enormous turn-around - at least for those people entering the 24 hour section of the event. Propagation on the Saturday was truly remarkable with tropo extending right through the far side of Germany and into Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. US5WU in KO20 was worked as best DX by some stations. The G-Force Contest Group, G4XBF/P have been doing this contest for many years but this was the first time when they have experienced such excellent conditions.
Although superb, propagation was actually quite focussed. G4PIQ worked around 50 OK and OM stations (more than the number of UK stations worked!), but only 10 SP stations, whereas, G4XBF/P about 100km further south had a quite different mix with 32 OKs, no OMs, but 22 SPs and many more German stations in the Berlin area. G4ZTR (who is located very close to G4PIQ) had a mix of QSOs was very similar in structure to G4PIQ. If you plot these QSOs on a map it actually looks more like a reflection point than ducting, but tropo it certainly was.
By Sunday, conditions had unfortunately returned to normal, and entrants to the 6 hour contest were kicking themselves, but, nevertheless, it was good to see an increase in entries over last year. No one in the 6 hour single operator section ran high power - G4RQI/P wanted to run 400W, but couldn't lift the 4 kVA generator on his own so settled for 60W and still won the section. Jonathan Constable, M5FUN achieved a very respectable result in his first CW contest.
All entries will be forwarded to ARI for inclusion in the Europe wide Marconi contest results
Andy Cook, G4PIQ
24 Hour Single Operator Pos Call Pts QSOs Loc Pwr Ant Best DX km 1* G4PIQ 164225 277 01MU 400 4x15Y+2x9Y US5WU 1626 2* G4ZTR 74940 142 01KW 200 12Y SP8UFT 1508 3 G4OUT 10337 33 92AT 40 12ZL OK1AR 1063 4* G3FIJ 9484 31 01KV 20 10Y OK1KIM 887 5 GW4HBK 6715 23 81KP 200 9Y DK5DQ 722 6 G3YMC 787 5 91PJ 10 Vert G4HGI 268 24 Hour Multi Operator Pos Call Pts QSOs Loc Pwr Ant Best DX km 1* G4XBF/P 231123 380 00EW 400 2 x 17Y US5WU 1679 6 Hour Multi Operator Pos Call Pts QSOs Loc Pwr Ant Best DX km 1* G0FBB 22612 65 01EI 400 2 x 17Y OK1AR 888 6 Hour Single Operator Pos Call Pts QSOs Loc Pwr Ant Best DX km 1* G4RQI/P 12223 38 93PW 60 10Y DK0BN 729 2* G0TPH 10768 38 92IO 25 9Y TM1Y 850 3 G0DVJ 6065 23 01MX 50 5Y DF0TAU 603 4 G3JJZ 5964 28 01AJ 25 8Y DK5DQ 503 5 M0XXX/P 5187 23 81UN 50 21Y DL0KM 587 6 M0BPQ/P 4842 17 91XL 10 9Y DF0CI 711 7 G4XPE 3050 14 92GU 25 10Y DL0KM 554 8 M5FUN 2581 19 00DX 25 12Y DJ5BV 469 9 G3VQO/P 135 3 90VV 50 Whip G3JJZ 58 * Certificate Winners