26 Friday Mar 2021
Posted in HQ Stations, News
Hi Bob
A belated pic of the setup at my “new” QTH, which has been awaiting a station for 3 years now. Still engaged with the local planning authority, hence everything has been disguised as far as possible to minimise the view of it from our nearest neighbours 250m away!
73, Peter G3LET
25 Thursday Mar 2021
Hi Bob,
Just a couple of photos of my BERU portable setup at Seddon.
The 80m Windom isn’t visible but the 40m & 20m verticals are, on the edge of a fairly steep 90m-odd drop-off to the valley floor to the north-west. With 100W, I need all the natural help I can get!
Cheers,
Bill ZL3VZ
21 Sunday Mar 2021
Call: VK3MI Operator(s): VK3MI Station: VK3MI Class: SO-Restricted-24 LP QTH: VK3 Operating Time (hrs): 23 Summary: Band QSOs Bonus Pts ----------------------- 80: 57 850 40: 168 1280 20: 82 880 15: 24 410 10: 6 100 ----------------------- Total: 337 3520 Total Score = 5,140 Club: Comments: I again set up a portable station at a rural farm stay about 70 km east of Melbourne, due to the high level of manmade QRN and lack of space for antennas at my city QTH. I hauled up two multiband horizontal dipoles to a height of around 20m between some gum trees – one aimed at North America and the other at Europe. As usual, despite my best plans, it was a scramble to get the station set up in time before the start of the contest. Heavy rain was forecast for the Saturday, so I decided to take time off work and set up the antennas on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, one of the car tyres got a puncture and went flat while driving to the site so I lost several hours getting this fixed. This also meant I was forced to complete the antenna work in torrential rain on Saturday afternoon and ended up finishing in darkness with only 30 minutes remaining before the start of the contest. I than hastily set up the station and computer equipment and was relieved to be able to get on air just in time to catch the short 15M opening to UK at 10:00z. As summarised below, I ended up with a claimed raw score of 337 QSOs and 5140 points, which is a decent improvement over the 272 QSOs and 3930 points that I achieved in 2020. I attribute this to a combination of factors: - Better conditions on the high bands. I managed to make 6 VK QSOs (admittedly at ESP levels) on 10M, compared to nil in 2020. I was also able to work 8 UK stations during a short 15M opening to UK at the start of the contest. I did not hear or work any UK stations on 15M in 2020. - The availability of additional HQ stations from for bonus points - 80M seemed to play better this year and I think this was largely due to my use of horizontal dipoles rather than the quarter wave vertical with elevated radials that I had used in previous years. Vertically polarised antennas seem to suffer from excessive losses at this location due to their proximity with the surrounding trees. - This year I used RG11 rather than RG6 TV coax for the 70m long feedlines between the operating position and the location of the antennas. This reduced transmission losses on 10M and 15M by up to a couple of dB. The only 5 band QSOs were with VK stations but I was pleased to make 4 band QSOs with G3BJ, G6XX and GM6XX. Thanks to everyone for the QSOs and especially the large number of HQ stations for all the bonus points! A special shout out to 5Z4VJ and ZF2CA for their exceptional patience with the many repeats required to pull out my weak signal on 40M and 80M respectively. Radio: FLEX-6400 100W Logging software: WriteLog Antennas: Pair of 80M-10M orthogonal multiband horizontal dipoles (20m height) aimed at North America and Europe Thanks again to everyone for the QSOs and especially all the operators who made the effort to activate the VK HQ stations - the latter certainly helped to boost scores this year. Unfortunately the owner of the rural property that I stayed at for the contest is selling up so I'll be looking for another option next year!
20 Saturday Mar 2021
Posted in HQ Stations, News
Allan, everyone,
It was a lot of fun. I wished I had been able to use more bands and operate for longer. I will try to encourage the two other cw operators to consider contesting in future, if only to hand out a few multipliers.
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH
20 Saturday Mar 2021
Posted in HQ Stations, News
This year, VK1WIA, VK2WIA, VK3WIA, VK4WIA, VK5WIA, VK6WIA and VK7WIA were activated in the Commonwealth Contest. Could we try and get VK8 next year?
Thank you for responding to my call for CW operator assistance. I am certain that all who exchanged numbers with you in the contest, appreciated the bonus points. Some of you experienced extreme weather, antenna failures, logging problems and other commitment conflicts; but that is behind us and now we await the contest results and to plan for next year’s contest.
A special thanks to Andrew for his portable activation of VK1WIA from Red Hill in Canberra. I hope you can do it again next year Andrew, as there are very few CW operators in VK1.
Canada and New Zealand also responded well with additional HQ stations.
I think that this year would have been a record number of HQ stations in the contest.
FYI: A total of 26 VK calls have submitted contest logs.
Lastly, two actions: 1. Send contest photos to bob@g3pjt.com2. Send the ADIF log to the WIA.
73,
Allan, VK2GR
18 Thursday Mar 2021
Posted in HQ Stations, News, Reports
From: Andrew VK1DA
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2021 22:11:20 GMT
I received several direct messages about another post-contest logger, but I have successfully captured the log using Fast Log Entry in contest mode, it has keyboard shortcuts for ciphers and reports default to 599, so within a half hour or so my log was finished and the Cabrillo output ready for tidying up, with power level etc.
So with help from Allan VK2GR the file is being checked before upload.
Thanks to all for the contacts. I was operating out of my car on Red Hill in Canberra’s south, about 3 km south of Parliament House. Rig was IC706, antenna a dipole I made for SOTA use, supported on a 7m pole at the feedpoint.
I thought the afternoon/evening conditions on 40m were pretty darn good, I don’t recall working into G at that signal level ever before. Benefits of the sunspot low!
Plans for a better station next time. This was cobbled together hastily when an opportunity became available, I was nearly out of action all weekend due to illness in the family, but that was resolved on Friday.
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH
17 Wednesday Mar 2021
From: Colin Smithers
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2021 22:07:06 GMT
Last year a Hangouts txt came through from my Camb-Hams chums (the generic name for several Cambridge UK ham groups) mid-contest wondering if I was considering getting home PDQ, given the state of the news with travel shutting down rapidly. I tried not to let it distract me and pressed on, not imagining for a second where we would all be by now.
On my route in via Boston I had met and had dinner with Marty NN1C one of the ZF1A regulars and spoke amongst many other things about the bits I had been accumulating on-island to make the travelling less arduous, now including an older and lightly populated K3.
During the year Marty mailed to check whether my K3 was still there and would I mind it being put to use in their remote operation? The ZF1A regulars have put together an entire remote SO2R multi-op system that has continued to do well in the big rate contests. It’s quite a set-up:
– Two full stations based on remoted K3s and an Acom or OM amplifier
– Shared, band-pass filtered switched antennas
– Remote rotator controls
– For multi-op, logging computers networking from anywhere on the planet
So this year I was ZF2CA remote, as some of you read in a brief snip earlier. As ever, in the run-up work behaves like the dog that knows instinctively that you are going on holiday and plays up, so preparation was behind the curve and sleep not sufficiently topped up.
Conditions started well with low QRN on 80, always a dice throw in the tropics and after a few fumbling minutes I was away to a decent start against all the big VEs – you have to tune the K3 remote head quite slowly but given that it works a treat. There had been high winds so the 80m beam was fixed NE, but it didn’t seem to matter. After 30 mins to 40m and then to 20 where as always it’s like coming out from the dark into the sunlight to find the big VEs a 100 Qs ahead or more. From then it’s trying to keep up, keep your chin up, and remember to QSY every rare opportunity. Must have kicked myself ten times for failing to do this.
Operating wise, it is too easy to think ‘I’m the mult, I’ll just bash away’ but with all the additional HQ stations this now requires significantly more adaptation, as they too think they are the mult. I was only lightly affected by DQRM but of course had to send ‘BERU, UK, UK PSE’ such a lot. Almost all got the message although one out of character JM really took his time. I was hit by the ‘Give your call’ police a couple of times, unfairly I think because I did my best not to go beyond two Qs. It is important to note that not giving out your all is the best way to moderate and therefore speed up a big pileup, especially with so many piling on zero beat. The smart ones 70Hz either side get the worm first, and usually first go. I wasn’t caught out by too many callsigns although G3DR and GM3DR had me going: I thought you could only have one ‘3DR’ at once, not two. There were a surprising number of dupes, some with low total Qs; I’m sure they know why but it beats me.
Getting the South Africans is always a challenge as they don’t seem to beam west often, but a bit of persistence pays off – and revealed some high Q counts. Then, at 4pm, just as I was working G3TBK on 15 all went dark. My ISP kicked the equipment off and so a router reboot lots of faffing to bring everything back up. Looking now the log shows 35 minutes lost.
A short break for dinner then I dared to take 40 winks. Being in the Remote section I am not up for the big trophies so staying awake for the normal 22.5 hours is suddenly far harder. It wouldn’t matter I thought, daytime path to VK/ZL not quite open yet. Overslept and came down to white noise. No camera looking at the big amps, no Anydesk into the ZF PC, so no antenna director and no ability to switch any antenna, at all. Huh?… Murphy had visited during my slumber!
My PC had done a reset, another in a string that we have all suffered recently. Perhaps a PC reset also in the ZF shack? I WhatsApped site owner Andrew Eden to have a look and he reported a power outage, now restored fortunately. He reset the ZF PC and quickly the cameras and Anydesk were back up, but no antennas. The Green Heron server that ran it was unresponsive. Now feeling I was becoming a bit of a pain I WhatsApped system architect Marty in Boston. He was out, but 30 mins later we were back up. Lost the whole VK/ZL HF opening though, so many mults L. So press on with openings on 40 and 80 before it all slowed right down by about 3 a.m., and some shuteye until 5.30.
Sunday morning is the chance to catch up as the paths to G on 80 and then 40 is somehow better for ZF then than from VE, not forgetting that it is also wide open to VK/ZL and so the chance to pick up a lot of mults. Constant beam switching to be heard by both but listen to one path or the other. But where were they? I was checking my 2019 log which showed the last 45m filled with them, far fewer this year, though loud when they were there. Hmmm.
Switching back I continued trying to winkle out the weaker Gs. In CQ WW I do QRP from the UK and so I recognise the effort I request of the DX end; this is payback time. Most of the calls are familiar and so easier to decode, but then G3JNB. Not such a regular contest call but it rang strong bells and suddenly I recalled this guy Victor whose name was representing Sutton and Cheam RS in one of those fat chrome folders in Cheam library filled with thin carbon copies and that my Mum had found. I must have rung him 20 times but no joy; out of date number I reckoned. I was just 9. He’s got through now!
I eventually became the club ‘mascot’ in short trousers, until replaced by the younger Gary G4IFB, now ZL2IFB. Worked him too!
BAND QSO BONUS HQ DUP POINTS
———————————-
80 144 23 12 2 720
40 178 41 18 3 885
20 232 34 12 7 1160
15 53 22 5 1 265
10 0 0 0 0 0
———————————-
TOTAL 607 120 47 13 3030
==================================
FINAL SCORE: 6 370
16 Tuesday Mar 2021
From: Kerr, Prof. K.M.
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2021 19:55:14 GMT
I would have done this earlier but I too was, and remain, slightly at odds with Wintest and my expected leave this last couple of days did not quite work out. Well, that was a seriously tough weekend! Dramatically high Kp Indices in the early hours of both Saturday and Sunday were just not what was needed and the results were as (nearly) everyone reported.
No, conditions were not good, not at this QTH anyway. There were signals on 10 and 15m at the start but it was short skip EU so not much use. I had nothing on 40m at the start, unlike Don reported. A few useful QSOs did come along, especially on 15m but hardly great. It is also a shame just how few stations manage to get on for BERU from Africa. I know there are many fewer licenced individuals, and probably none in many of the places that would formerly have seen one or two at least but I cannot help wondering if the ‘concept’ of this contest does not rest comfortably with many folks in all parts of the Commonwealth.
Twenty was the money band during the day but I was working the second radio hard on 15m and this produced a few extra QSOs, including VY2ZM and a couple of VE3 but nothing else from VE on that band. 9J2BO was a terrific signal on 10m but it was not possible to persuade anyone else to try there and in general, my hopefully polite requests for moves had mixed responses. Some folks were very obliging so many thanks to you. The dashes to 40m in the later afternoon and to 80m when SS was upon us were entertaining with some terrific signals from VK and ZL but just no volume. I began to wonder if the great turn out of VK and ZL HQ stations dented the supply of ordinary QSOs from that part of the world. An opening on 80m into Eastern VK was especially impressive. 20m seemed to go off quite quickly on Saturday evening although a few stations did hang in there and I at least managed to work VE7, VE6, VE5 and a clutch of VE4 on 20m. I was also called by the VE7 RAC station who had a good signal, but he never came back with my report and SN despite me calling him for quite a while. And so to 40m which, for me was quite reluctant to open and pickings were very sparse despite some great signals. Like in ARRL SSB, stations were best heard on my NA beverage, so-so on the 4 square and inaudible on my rotary dipole up 90ft. That does not usually bode well since I never feel like the 4 square really has enough ‘poke’!! It was a bit of a plod from 20z and the callers from VE were welcome but disappointing and I never heard or worked anything West of VE3. The rate improved for a while when I went to 80m but it seemed to me that the QSO supply just dried up, not help but the strong aurora.
By midnight I had 257 QSOs, by 0230z I had only added another 17. I went for a snooze but was back in the chair at 0330z……………NO QSOs until 0500 when I get called by a dupe! I did not work anyone for points until 0535 when G6XX broke the monotony. I snagged one ZL2 on 40m around 0615 for my second QSO on that band since before 2300z and there were a few good signals from ZL around SR on 80 but there was almost nothing to be worked on 80m from VE, and like on 40m, nothing at any time from West of VE3. I saw after the contest that the Kp index at Kiruna peaked at #7 around 0230z. After SR there were some very good signals on 40LP, and a grudging LP opening on 20m, to VK/ZL but nothing from anywhere on 15 or 10. I was quite glad when it was time to stop.
I certainly had plenty of DQRM, especially when it was obvious I was struggling to complete with a station – this seemed to be the invitation to start sending carriers over the caller. I did not have any of the bogus calls that Don suffered, at least I don’t think I did, but I did log VR2BLEE without realizing this was not a Commonwealth station. I noted many stations were struggling with each other and I spent many frustrating spells wondering if I would get another QSO, listening to stations just sending NR? to each other whilst I was lucky enough to hear both sides quite well but had no idea who they were. It felt like about 25% of the RF I radiated was to send SRI ONLY CC or BERU or such like. I also think I got told off once for being on 009 but I honestly cannot recall which band that was. I also noticed that some of the Contest rarities were not so much in the habit of keeping up with signing ever third QSO.
Whatever is my final claimed score, it will surely drop when I get dinged for copy errors. The table is what Wintest says – some of it does not seem to make sense
| Band | Counting QSOs (I hope) | Points | HQ | Bonuses |
| 80 | 62 | 310 | 14 | 900 |
| 40 | 86 | 430 | 21 | 1220 |
| 20 | 115 | 570 | 17 | 1340 |
| 15 | 24 | 120 | 7 | 480 |
| 10 | 6 | 30 | 4 | 120 |
| 293 | 1460 | 4060 |
Total is 5520
BUT there were two non-scoring ZL HQs on each of 80, 40 and 20 so does that mean another 300 total points?????………..299 QSOs for 5820 points claimed? Not sure.
Bit of a puzzle.
73 Keith GM4YXI
16 Tuesday Mar 2021
From: Jim GM0NAI
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2021 16:32:56 GMT
Contest : RSGB Commonwealth Contest
Callsign : GM0NAI
Mode : CW
Category : OPEN-SOU
Overlay : 12-HOURS
Band(s) : All bands (AB)
Class : High Power (HP)
Zone/State/… :
Locator : IO77UO
Operating time : 7h38
BAND QSO DUP DXC HQ POINTS BONUS AVG
——————————————–
80 23 0 11 9 115 460 25.00
40 66 3 19 18 330 1060 21.06
20 66 0 18 9 330 820 17.42
15 9 0 5 3 45 180 25.00
10 1 0 0 1 5 20 25.00
——————————————–
TOTAL 165 3 53 40 825 2540 20.39
============================================
TOTAL SCORE : 3 365
Couldn’t allocate a lot of time this year due to other commitments.
Sad to hear about Don’s pirate call issue especially as it comes from someone with a knowledge of BERU. Also the 20m DX window police this is completely un-acceptable.
Managed to do the first couple of hours that went OK with strong VE signals on 40m and allowed some comparison of the newly integrated FTDX1K and the original K3.
Quite like the implementation of the SYNC button on the 1K as it does not change the 2nd receiver antenna selection or amp selection only syncs the frequency.
Good for diversity so the RX antenna on port 3 can have AMP2 setting while the main VFO has IPO on a different port.
No TX audio was recorded on the USB CODEC audio in wintest contest recorder. I know this has already been reported to Yaesu.
Need to think of a temporary solution until the next firmware update.
The new updates to the 4 square control worked well but I really need to add a pre-amp to the receive 4 square. Job for later W7IUV 2N5109 I think any thoughts?
Rebuilt/Refurbished rotators worked without any problems after having the towers down for several months. Good that Hygain spares are still available but just slow due to COVID staffing at MFJ.
DXDOUBLER SO2R box worked well after some modifications to sort Audio hum and RF pickup. Mostly Pin1 issues and screening issues on the chassis. Had a hellish time getting the Parallel port adaptor to work on my new WIN10 Optiplex but got there eventually. I think an upgrade is coming to USB in future.
Came back on in the afternoon but was struggling with high noise from Static rain/hail.
Wind turbine noise was not bad but I haven’t got a resolution for this issue at the moment. Un-fortunately it is bearing 300deg so direct on the NA path. The electric fences were OFF so that was good.
Nice to work Gary ZL2IFB on 80m quite a bit before sunset.
Tesla contest kicked off on both 80 and 40 that surprised me as I seem to remember it was only 80m previously??
Wasn’t a show stopper as they stayed a bit higher in the band and the DX window police weren’t active then as they were on 20m earlier.
Quit at about 22:00 with aurora KP5.
Back on 06:00 with not a signal to be heard on 20m.
40M was in pretty good shape to ZL/VK though with some great signals but no depth of stations. VEs quite weak but workable.
Tough conditions but quite enjoyable.
Thanks to all the operators of the HQ stations.
As others have mentioned Wintest duped the ZL6HQ/ calls. Did about 9hrs in total but Wintest thought it was only 7:38
Well that’s enough waffling, un-fortunately as I have given up my RSGB membership after 25+ Years this means I can no longer enter BERU.
I wish BERU all the best for the future but un-fortunately I won’t be able to contribute anymore.
73
Jim
GM0NAI
16 Tuesday Mar 2021
Posted in Reports
It was great to have a go from UK , especially during Lockdown! A most enjoyable BERU for me.
Conditions seemed poor but there was lots to work down in the noise. Managed to improve the home antenna farm with a home made tiltover mast, hinging on one HT steel bolt! It supported a 20m loop, 15m loop, 40m V, and the other end of the garden had a 80m L and 10m dipole…managed 130 ish QSOs with 100w, though deep QSB on all bands made it hard to be accurate at times. Only 5B4 on 10m, must have missed out there!Thanks to the HQ stations for keeping going, I did have snooze for a few hours from 0200 till a rather disappointing sunday early rise at 0530. 73 Mike G3VYI
Commonwealth Contest 