Active call areas in 2020

Plenty of DX to be found as the following list of active Commonwealth call areas shows 3B8,9, 5B, 6Y, 8P, 8Q, 9G, 9H, 9J, 9M0,2, 9V, 9Z, C4, C6, V3, V5, VE1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9, VK2,3,4,5,6,7,8, VO1,2, VP2,5,8,9, VY10,1,2, ZB2, ZD7, ZF, ZK, ZL1,2,3,4, ZS1,5,6. Not all of these were worked from the UK of course.

 

ZF2CA Epliogger woes

Hi Bob,

As an epilogue to the 2020 ZF2CA entry I was caught out by a logger error which I failed to spot before uploading, amid all the Covid woes with return travel and business disruption. The short story is that my final log included no HQ bonuses.

After now working line by line through the log and my UBN, my calculations are that I would have scored 7445 points and therefore 2^nd in SOU. I did appeal but only after publication of the results, so it was rejected. Of course, the decision of the RSGB is final which I have accepted.

The good news is that I am now working with the DxLog team to pipe clean its BERU variant before next year, plus I actually understand the scoring system now!

See you all next year!

73, Colin ZF2CA, G4CWH, M3E

Australia win

For the fourth year in row Australia has won the team section of the Radio Society of Great Britain’s Commonwealth Contest.

Australia One finished the contest with 35,683 points, with the top Canadian, World Traveller and New Zealand teams finishing second, third and fourth respectively.

Australia Two finished fifth overall in the team section, with 24,453 points

The CW-only Commonwealth Contest 2020 ran from 10.00 UTC on 14 March until
10.00 UTC on 15 March.

The stations in Australia One were Kevin VK6LW, John VK4CT, Barry VK2BJ, Steve VK6VZ and Alan
VK4SN, while Australia Two were Allan VK2GR, Brian VK3MI, Patrick VK2PN, Steve VK3JA and Rob VK6HG.

In addition we were ably supported by four Wireless Institute of Australia headquarters
stations, consisting of VK3WIA, VK4WIA, VK5WIA and VK6WIA. Many thanks to Lee VK3GK, the Sunshine Coast Amateur Radio Club, Grant VK5GR and Peter VK6RZ, who helped us by operating these HQ stations for as long as they could.

There were also some outstanding individual performances from Australia. Brian VK3MI was world second in the Restricted Unassisted section with 6,092 points, while Kevin VK6LW top scored for Australia with 8,060 points and finished eighth in the Open Unassisted section. Honourable mentions go to Barry VK2BJ and John VK4CT who tied for sixth place in the Open Assisted category, while Steve VK6VZ and Allan VK2GR respectively finished in tenth and eleventh places in the Open Unassisted category.

Overall, the conditions during the contest were typical for bottom of the solar cycle conditions, with 10m just about dead, 15m showing barely a pulse, 20m only giving brief openings into the UK on both short path and 80m providing both local and DX contacts. Thank goodness for 40m being in such excellent shape and providing up to half the points score for many competitors.

A big ‘thank you’ goes to all the other Australian stations who took part in Commonwealth Contest 2020.

The Radio Society of Great Britain’s Commonwealth Contest is one of the
oldest radio contests in existence, having been first run back in 1931
when it was known as British Empire Radio Week and lasted for six
days!

I hope to see you in Commonwealth Contest 2021.

73s from Steve Ireland, VK6VZ, Australian One Coordinator

VK Results – 2020 Commonwealth Contest

Congratulations to the Australia 1 Team for achieving first place again in the 2020 Commonwealth Contest.

From the 2020 Commonwealth Contest results, I have extracted and sorted the VK and ZL scores; these are tabulated below.

Also attached for your interest are the charted team and HQ results.

						Adjusted
VK Team 1			QSOs	BCA	Score	Score
		VK6LW	421	102	5,200	8,060
		VK2BJ	340	100	4,755	7,370
		VK4CT	349	95	4,755	7,370
		VK6VZ	310	98	4,395	6,812
		VK4SN	229	76	3,710	5,751
		Total	1,649	471	22,815	35,363
		Table 1.      Australia 1

						Adjusted
VK Team 2			QSOs	BCA	Score	Score
		VK2GR	301	87	4,290	6,650
		VK3MI	272	78	3,930	6,092
		VK2PN	229	68	3,335	5,169
		VK3JA	157	53	2,660	4,123
		VK6HG	69	42	1,560	2,418
		Total	1,028	328	15,775	24,452
		Table 2.      Australia 2

VK HQ QSOs BCA Score VK5WIA 148 60 2,660 VK6WIA 99 52 2,165 VK4WIA 69 39 1,545 VK3WIA Checklog Total 316 151 6,370 Table 3.     VK HQ Stations Other VK QSOs BCA Score VK2/G3VYI 114 52 2,240 VK7GN 119 45 2,000 VK4XY 59 33 1,380 VK4TT 45 25 1,000 VK5IR 37 23 890 VK3YE 22 15 525 VK2CCC 20 12 445 VK6WX 11 8 250 VK2GZ 8 7 200 VK6RZ 6 6 150 VK3TZ Checklog Table 4.     VK Stations

ZL Logs			QSOs	BCA	Score
		ZM2B	257	92	4,085
		ZL3PAH	242	93	3,985
		ZL4TT	236	75	3,615
		ZL3AL	174	71	2,950
		ZL3GA	138	58	2,535
		ZL2RX	125	52	2,295
		ZL1IF	191	41	1,855
		ZL3VZ	77	39	1,495
		ZM1M	73	30	1,250
		ZL3AB	46	26	985
		ZL1T	21	15	485
		ZL2AIM	13	11	320
		ZL1TM				Checklog
		Table 5.     ZL Stations

Regards,
Allan Mason, VK2GR
Mobile: +61 401 324 058