Oooh - this was a close fought contest this year - and that was at the top of pretty much every section. However - the competition between John Quarmby, G3XDY and Robert Ferguson, GD4GNH at the top of the single operator fixed section was particularly fierce. Every QSO in the logs (including the paper ones, which were all entered onto the computer) were thoroughly cross-checked, and although John made 2 errors in the whole set of contests and Robert made only one - Robert's was on a much longer QSO, enabling John's to close the gap from around 90 points down to just 25 points. With one error a piece - John would have won! This demonstrates just how important accurate logging is when the results are close. In third place comes Anthony Coldman G7LRQ - a recent returner to this contest who now has a bit more power than on his last entry in 1996 and is putting in a score to challenge John & Robert (very much the establishment on this band) - look out!
Congratulations to the South Birmingham Radio Society, G8OHM/P, who went out portable this year in an effort to dislodge Andrew Hutley, G6SPS from the top of the 'All Others' section. This bit of extra effort clearly succeeded, and they made something of a an event of the contests, by having around half a dozen members on site each time to operate / lend moral support. The nearby hostelry was always attractive, even if it called just a little too strongly when the weather was windy, or wet, flooded, or even snowing!
Interest remains high in 13cm, with more people building and threatening to be on next time. This band also helped to distract the runners-up in the 23cm sections since they also put in very strong scores on 13cm. John, G3XDY was developing his 13cm station during the events from 2W at the start to 30W at the end - he'll clearly be big competition once again in the future. Any of the top three statioins could have won the single op section, but top marks to David Millard, G8NEY for keeping enough of an edge to give him his 4th win in as many years. Single antenna 25W awards go to G6XDI and G4THI.
73, Andy Cook, G4PIQ.
23cm Single Operator Fixed Section Pos Callsign29-Sep 14-Oct 29-Oct 13-Nov 30-Nov Norm QSO Loc Pwr Ant km 1 GD4GNH 3188 3769 3411 2934 2717 2949 56 74QD 150 8 x 23Y 453 2 G3XDY 0 4124 2779 3091 4235 2924 76 02OB 300 4 x 23Y 453 3 G7LRQ 1768 2868 1316 3089 4584 2695 110 91TQ 100 4 x 55Y 508 4 G3MEH 1662 3218 1978 1674 2450 1902 94 91QS 100 2 x 35Y 427 5 G8NEY 1685 2598 1870 1533 2506 1725 76 81VK 200 55Y 536 6 G8ZQB 1521 1636 0 1992 2123 1585 61 92JN 150 40QLY 287 7 G4THI 1093 1841 1342 1435 1832 1310 57 93HC 100 35Y 244 8 G6XDI 314 1339 1224 913 1323 979 56 91SM 20 28QLY 405 9 G4GFI 0 0 1543 812 1097 954 34 91VH 20 28QLY 433 10 G4SJH 383 0 0 756 621 500 29 91PI 15 15Y 154 23cm All Others Section Pos Callsign29-Sep 14-Oct 29-Oct 13-Nov 30-Nov Norm QSO Loc Pwr Ant km 1 G8OHM/P 2287 3943 3753 3383 4863 3000 104 82QL 140 55Y 569 2 G6SPS/P 2650 3212 2256 2242 4174 2673 89 01IT 150 23Y 441 3 G0KTH/P 3 230 0 0 452 152 7 82UP/NN 20 55Y 279 13cm Single Operator Fixed Section Pos Callsign29-Sep 14-Oct 29-Oct 13-Nov 30-Nov Norm QSO Loc Pwr Ant km 1 G8NEY 575 753 0 166 497 3000 18 81VK 40 48QLY 205 2 G8ZQB 457 445 0 470 474 2749 20 92JN 15 1.5m 155 3 G3XDY 0 626 266 352 439 2715 11 02OB 30 44QLY 222 4 G4THI 219 255 122 323 316 1782 14 93HC 4 25Y 201 5 G6XDI 72 87 0 35 147 537 7 91SM 5 41QLY 121 13cm All Others Section Pos Callsign29-Sep 14-Oct 29-Oct 13-Nov 30-Nov Norm QSO Loc Pwr Ant km 1 G6SPS/P 560 966 44 536 389 3000 20 01IT 5