Despite the change of date this year, brought about by the re-scheduling of the 144MHz and 432MHz Low Power Contests, entry level was up by one on last year, but with more multi-operator and fewer fixed station entries. Activity was good with over 200 different callsigns logged though sadly, as last year, some had only one QSO, apparently just coming on to give points away to their friends. Five Bells Contest Group turned in a very creditable performance from their new site, averaging 366 points per QSO.
This year Bryn Llewellyn, G4DEZ, won the Single operator Fixed section with Roger Piper, G3MEH, again taking second place. Andy Kissack, operating GD0TEP/P on behalf of the Northern Lights CG, won the Single operator Others section and takes the Four Metre Cup, with Peter Croucher G4YPC/P in second place. The Multi-operator section was won by the Five Bells CG operating GM4SIV/P who also take the VHF Manager’s Trophy, with Lothians RS as runners up. Dave Hook, M5ADF, Nick Garbett, M1DDD/P and The Midlands CG operating M5HDF/P are awarded certificates for being the highest placed stations in their sections using 25W or less and a single antenna.
Roger Piper G3MEH
Section SF
Pos Call Loc QSO's QSO pts Mults Score Best DX Loc Dist Pwr Ant Club or Group 1* G4DEZ JO03AE 74 16499 58 956942 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 442 160 8el
2* G3MEH IO91QS 64 10366 50 518300 GM4AFF IO86ST 573 160 2x5el
3 G3JYP IO84SN 42 10183 42 427686 G1EHF/P JO01NC 454 120 15el col.
4 G8SRL JO01ED 45 8515 38 323570 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 615 50 7el
5 G4OBK IO94OF 34 8498 35 297430 G2KF IO70PP 479 70 5 el
6* M5ADF IO91TO 33 5711 31 177041 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 543 25 6el
7 G4CZB IO92MF 30 5505 32 176160 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 463 20 3el
8 G2KF IO70PP 24 6642 25 166050 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 523 25 4el
9 GM4AFF IO86ST 18 7295 21 153195 G4ZAP/P IO80AQ 688 70 8el
10 G3IKR IO82XF 27 5189 29 150481 GM4AFF IO86ST 511 160 4el
11 G4AFJ IO92HO 23 4452 26 115752 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 414 50 8el
12 G3FIJ JO01KV 15 3426 19 65094 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 577 10 4el
13 G3VQO IO91UB 1 49 2 98 G4YPC/P JO00EW 49 10 3el vert
Section SO
Pos Call Loc QSO's QSO pts Mults Score Best DX Loc Dist Pwr Ant Club or Group
1* GD0TEP/P IO74QD 102 30394 72 2188368 G1EHF/P JO01NC 515 160 2x8el Northern Lights CG
2* G4YPC/P JO00EW 78 18842 63 1187046 GM4AFF IO86ST 680 160 8el
3 G3UUT/P JO02EB 54 10264 44 451616 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 539 100 6el
4* M1DDD/P IO93AE 52 8162 43 350966 GM4AFF IO86ST 404 10 21el LPY
5 GW4EVX/P IO83JF 55 7990 42 335580 G1EHF/P JO01NC 378 70 3el
6 G1KHX/P IO81MH 41 7616 37 281792 GM4AFF IO86ST 613 90 5el
7 G0OVA/P IO91QI 29 5718 32 182976 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 554 5 3el
8 G6GVI/M IO81TL 23 3937 24 94488 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 480 50 2el
9 GM4VVX/P IO78VB 6 2151 9 19359 G4DEZ JO03AE 604 10 6el
Section M
Pos Call Loc QSO's QSO pts Mults Score Best DX Loc Dist Pwr Ant Club or Group
1* GM4SIV/P IO75DH 94 34417 67 2305939 G1EHF/P JO01NC 652 160 2x9el+1x6el Five Bells CG
2* GM3HAM/P IO74WV 84 27847 65 1810055 G1EHF/P JO01NC 549 160 11el+6el Lothians RS
3 GW3TCU/P IO83JA 120 22032 75 1652400 GM4VVX/P IO78VB 564 160 4x6el
4 GI4GTY/P IO74AI 73 22195 55 1220725 G1EHF/P JO01NC 598 160 6el Lagan Valley ARS
5 G4ZAP/P IO80AQ 80 19967 56 1118152 GM4AFF IO86ST 688 160 8el+5el (FM) A1 CG
6 G1EHF/P JO01NC 62 14701 50 735050 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 652 160 6el EHF & SJH
7 G0VHF/P JO01HW 60 12997 51 662847 GM4SIV/P IO75DH 561 150 2x5el Colchester CG
8 MM0CPS/P IO85RU 48 14239 45 640755 G4ZAP/P IO80AQ 582 160 8el Cockenzie & Port Seton ARC
9* M5HDF/P IO82UK 23 3746 25 93650 GI4GTY/P IO74AI 323 5 4el Midland CG
10 G4ADV IO70LK 9 2160 11 23760 G1EHF/P JO01NC 440 25 7el Newquay & DARS
G0OVA/P
Blood out of a stone with fault condx. (5W !!!! ) Hard work with unexpected power out (5W !!! ) pulling hens teeth!!!!!
GD0TEP/P
Blew my transverter up the night before forced a late night repair. Faulty rotator controller insisted in turning the antenna in the direction it wanted, no matter where I wanted it to go!
G1KHX
Good to the north. Wx mostly sunny.
G2KF
Lost a few with QSB & QRN sorry guys
G3FIJ
Good at times - QSB - Beams not pointed east very often!
GM3HAM/P
Conditions were fairly flat. High activity but lots of QRM. SWR went infinite 1/2 hour before the start of contest. Fortunately the dodgy connection was reachable near the bottom of the 68ft mast. Weather was excellent
G3IKR
Conditions during the contest quite good.
G3JYP
I considered condx to be good, consistently strong signals from the south.
G3MEH
Conditions a little above average but slow going at times.
GW3TCU/P
Conditions seemed average; no Es heard. We were lucky with the weather; dry all week-end when the forecast for Sunday was abysmal. Activity was good, we were kept busy for the whole six hours - could have used more time. Thanks to all the stations that persevered to complete QSOs with us, we were pleased that none 'got away' despite high QRM and local noise levels.
G3UUT/P
Missed the first half hour due to problems with getting out of bed. Then had to spend half an hour getting the logging computer going. This made conditions seem even worse than the poor average that they were.
G3VQO
only one station heard !!!!
G4ADV
Band quiet.
GM4AFF
I found this contest very hard going! No one (bar one) answered my CQ calls, and I heard many stations working folk, then never heard them again! Two stations called who didn't hear me were G8SRL and EI3IO. Working some stations was a trial too, but we eventually succeeded in most cases - G4YPC/P was a very good signal throughout the contest but could hardly hear me. I think QRM must be bad down south.
G4AFJ
Average.
G4CZB
Much improved score this year due to Rx, Tx and antenna improvements, plus there seemed to be more activity. 25% of QSOs were on CW.
G4DEZ
Activity not very good for a Trophy contest no DX.
GW4EVX/P
Fairly average conditions but pleasing level of activity.WX forecast was dreadful but fortunately they were wrong and it was a beautiful day!
GI4GTY/P
No Sporadic E openings to Europe. Weather variable with heavy showers at times.
G4OBK
6 Hours a little long for me so I put 3 hours in Condx pretty good inter-UK Tropo so can't really complain. Good to see all the /P stations out in G GM GI & GW
GM4SIV/P
Very high level of QRM on the band this year - much worse than usual often up to S9. Quite a good level of activity, but perhaps spoilt a little by the event being a little later than normal. Not quite able to complete with S51DI and not worth chasing any of the MS stations. New site is quite good has a good take off even though it is not as high as the old site, but you can drive up and operate without too many problems!
GM4VVX/P
Beautiful day out on the hills, warm sun and no wind at all. Seemed a shame to turn the geni' on to shatter the complete silence Hi Hi... Condx were good at start with 4 or 5 stations audible. Which is VERY good for this far North. Buxton, Angus and Cornish beacons all r5s5. Called many stations but no reply as they seemed to have pile ups [ON 70Mhz ???] and my little signal from so far N. was not getting heard. Called G8XVJ/P in io93 many times throughout the contest, [rx here at r5s9]. His hearing aid must have had a flat battery ? Hi Hi... Found I had to use CW for over half of qso's in order to make it...Several ops reported problems with qrm. Later in contest the Cornish beacon faded to 0 and the Buxton one was v.weak, and activity dropped off....Only the same few calling to the end. Heard serial No. of 66, so activity must have been good down South..
G4YPC/P
Average. No equipment problems this year! Excellent weather. No continentals heard.
G4ZAP/P
Conditions very poor. Poor signals from central UK, weak and lots of QSB. Seems like GM / GD had better luck. The forecast rain arrived while taking the station down. At least no thunder storms! Had a computer crash and sent serial 065 twice while changing to paper.
G6GVI/M
Sunny and dry. Good propagation, except to the South-West.
G8SRL
Conditions were above average, there was increased activity but the combination of high QRM and a strong station to the south of me overloading the front end of my equipment made for a difficult contest. With a peak QRM of S8 it was impossible to work the weak stations. Still this was my best result in years.
MM0CPS/P
We thought it would be wise to set up on the Saturday evening this time, and had everything but the amplifier ready by 9pm Saturday. All looked promising until 0830hrs Sunday when our generator wouldn’t start. Eventually figured this was due to low oil level but the 2 local garages in the nearest town (Duns) didn’t open until 1000hrs, resulting in a 50 mile round trip to G-land (Berwick-upon-Tweed). On return to the site we then had trouble keeping the amplifier PTT switching fully closed on TX. A makeshift PTT switch was hastily butchered from a headphone splitter box. Missed a large part of the start of the contest as a result (apart from picking off a few locals whilst running QRP). No available preamp made QSO's difficult, with many incompletes. One G3 was rather abusive about this, insisting our RX was deaf. In hindsight he was probably not far wrong, but it certainly ruffled a few feathers at the time. No sporadic E here this year to liven things up. Otherwise we all enjoyed the contest.
M1DDD/P
Average conditions. Huge splatter from a number of stations made operation very difficult and tiresome...occupational hazard I guess ! Never experienced such QRM in 144MHz contests...perhaps too much un-checked homebrew gear from some stations ?
M5HDF/P
This was our first ever entry into this contest. We only operated for the last
couple of hours but had good fun and were very pleased with some of the contacts.