Commonwealth Contest – GW4J

ome delayed afterthoughts from me…

Activity seemed down here both normal punters and travellers. A fine turnout of HQ stations from VE, VK and the UK – I publicly thanked the UK crew as it was my job to fill that particular list but all deserve our appreciation of course. Great job all round!

This was my first time for several years as a normal entrant and I enjoyed the completely different feel to being an HQ despite the slow death that set in from the early hours of Sunday morning here. This coincided with my amp falling over and requiring re-jigging to 100w barefoot. I suspect it made precious little difference. (since found the coupling capacitor at the rf input in a sorry state). The contest does feel in need of some attention but what? I wouldn’t like to see UK countries treated separately (GW work G and vice versa etc) as I suspect it would feel more like an all band 80m CC with a smattering of dx from here or GM, GI etc. The Commonwealth Contest is a contest with a unique feel for all its faults. There are plenty of speed contests already and I don’t think we should turn this into another. Some careful measured thoughts required I’d say – are some of the travelling set now getting too old for standing in airport queues before being packed like sardines onto a plane for example? The many tiny Commonwealth entities undoubtedly rely on travellers but what about the huge populations in VU and 9M which must have some CW contesters lurking?

Impressions here were best band 15m, mediocre on 10m, ok on 20 and decent on the low bands. I should pay more attention to learning about propagation because it probably costs me points in this contest but Steve GW0GEI normally does that when he’s here. So it surprised me when I first checked 40m at 1715z and heard and worked VK6T with an impressive signal; Kev ended up being one of my eleven 5-banders.

IC-7610 + Gemini HF-1K (most of the time). Hexbeam and verticals high bands; 40m vertical, 80m dipole around 14m

 BAND QSO BONUS HQ DUP POINTS AVG

———————————

   80  25    12  7   0    125 5.0

   40  49    21 10   0    245 5.0

   20  80    38 13   0    400 5.0

   15  85    35 10   0    425 5.0

   10  20    14  6   0    100 5.0

———————————

TOTAL 259   120 46   0   1295 5.0

=================================

        FINAL SCORE: 4 615

(Ignore the final 2 columns). DxLog appears to score this contest correctly and tells me I was at my post for 21.5 hours

73, Stew GW0ETF / GW4J

Ian g3kzr commented on BERU rpt from VK4M (VK4SN)

Interesting to read all the comments about this year. As a well medicated 87 year old with a stuck beam (60deg) I was going to try enough hours to make 100 plus QSOs but this year failed to do this due to the contest logging program locking up and  having to switch to contest mode and hand keying on my station logging program. A few booboos with that but allowed me 56 QSOs with most of the main players and ‘exotics’ on one band or another. I then failed to get on for UK morning session which has always been a fascinating period.

Overall, some signals from all parts were exceptional (worked the RAC stations right across Canada  easily on 15 off the side of the beam) but the general impression was that activity and/or condx were down with auroral effects.

Sorry not to find VK6VZ or 9J2BO. I hope both are OK.

With regards to inter G working and spicing up G for other entities, I may have misunderstood the new regulations with regard to call signs but it seems to me that G stations are much freer to interpolate an extra letter in the prefix. If this is so perhaps the contest committee could look at splitting England into the usually understood regions (SW, SE, Mids, NE and NW) and designating an extra letter in the prefix for each one. This would make it more interesting for everyone. 

I hope to do a better job next year along with a better contribution from the propagation gods and the status of the station

Ian G3KZR

M5O by G3LET

Hi Bob

A belated report from M5O (G3LET) after the return trip from Suffolk, where I was very kindly hosted by Andy M0NKR at his excellent station in Brandon.  I also spent much of yesterday fixing my sister-in-law’s bath/shower, which had commenced leaking buckets of water through her living room ceiling (I had stayed with her on the Friday and Sunday nights).

My own BigIR and 66 ft vertical are still languishing in the long grass of the paddock following Storm Eunice, remaining unrepaired due to some sailing commitments and other issues over the past 18 months.

Anyway, I managed to last the full 24 hours, albeit with rapidly diminishing concentration levels after midnight.  Hence, I will have significantly missed out on the usual morning LP openings.

Nevertheless, it was good to participate from the UK as opposed to various overseas sorties in recent years.

So this was by no means a competitive entry, with no attempts to move anybody, largely because the valve PA at Andy’s station requires several seconds of high power tuning, which is both time consuming and somewhat anti-social.

Most of my time was spent tuning, CQs producing mainly VE3s on the occasions they were tried (mainly when fatigue was setting in)

I ended up with 284 QSOs plus 3 dupes and a claimed score of 5440, pretty mediocre.  One highlight was hearing Gerry G3KMQ batting away.  Gerry did sterling service for several months copying my weekly log for QSL purposes in the early 1960’s during my VP8 operation.  He must be or at least approaching his 90’s by now.

Less welcome were the minimum of 4 other contests that now share the BERU weekend, however one of these did attract some Commonwealth stations who weren’t interested in BERU but made themselves available, albeit without the correct exchange.

Quite how long BERU can continue in it’s present form I am uncertain, with activity now largely limited to the “old” Commonwealth, the rather artificial HQ stations and a diminishing band of ex-pat travellers.  I have previously suggested the possibility of combining with the REF event, which shares many features with BERU, but whether historic rivalries could be overcome remains to be seen.  We have been comparatively lucky with propagation the last couple of years; let’s see whether this event can survive the next sunspot minimum.

Cheers and thanks to all for the QSOs!

Peter G3LET (M5O)

BERU rpt from VK4M (VK4SN)

Hello Alan and all

I agree with your comments below.  I was really a-buzz after the first night with great rates the first 3 hours but then it sure turned “south” (as they say in the northern hamisphere) .  LOL

My score was so “ordinary” that I hesitated to post it to the group but here it is.

Still some good runs in there and I was happy the station seemed to be in top form and Murphy was QRU here.

Best to all

73 Steve

                    RSGB Commonwealth Contest – 2024

Call: VJ3A

Operator(s): VK3JA

Station: VK3JA

Class: SO-Open-24 HP

QTH: Rural Melbourne

Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:

Band  QSOs  Bonus Pts

———————–

  80:  10      250

  40:  68      995

  20:  154    1370

  15:  60      515

  10:  45      625

———————–

Total:  337    3755  Total Score = 3,755

Club: VK Contest Club

ZL3P

Hi Bob,

Good to work you on Conditions here were really disappointing – I had been expecting much better.  Here in NZ BERU starts at 11pm and that is well past my bedtime these days so I decided to have an early night and start earlyish.  After a very necessary strong long black (coffee) I was actually ready to go at 17:50z.  Checked 15m, made a couple of Qs with G but not much going on so down to 40m and my first VK then onto 20m for the next hour with a run rate of about 1Q/min and mostly G but very surprised and pleased to work ZD7BG and 9H1CG.  Then switched to 15m with a good run of G & VE.  For the next couple of hours on 10/15/20m I worked a steady stream of G/VE/VK then time for a one hour break and more coffee and breakfast.  More of the same on 10/15/20m but the run rate was well down.  Nice to work G4SGX/6Y.  By now the run rate had really slowed down and didn’t pick up again until 05:00z when 40m opened here to VK/VE and G.  The signals on 40m were extremely distorted here, far more than normal in the early evening,  and I note that many ops were not even waiting for an exchange repeat but were just sending it several times.  There will be many busted Qs I think during this period.  I finally pulled the plug at 07:30 having decided I would put in a 12 hour assisted high power log.  Sadly nothing heard here on 80m but I really didn’t give it much of a chance.  I never my band planning quite right but always promise myself that next year I will do better.

My sincere thanks to the HQ stations and travellers without whom BERU would be a total slog.  Maybe it is time to look at the scoring?  I do think it is illogical that UK cannot work itself but VE/VK/ZL can work others outside their own call area, (although from a ZL perspective there are so few taking part here that this doesn’t really make any difference).  Again from a ZL perspective 5 points for a contact with G after the first 3 Qs on a band is a lot of effort for a poor return – we are better off working as many call areas in VK/VE as we can.  However the HQ stations definitely balance some of this out.  Maybe it is time for different UK countries to be able to work each other (but not themselves) and to count in the same way as VK/VE/ZL call areas.  And for the rest of us to get points for each UK country worked.  I haven’t thought about this too much and would not want to alter the flavour of BERU which as we all know is very addictive, which I guess is why we keep on coming back.  I offer this suggestion only as a possible way of enhancing activity, and am interested to hear what others think. 

My score from N1MM …

Band     QSOs     Pts  Cty  Sec  Pt/Q

     7      50     730   18    4  14.6

    14      74    1130   30    7  15.3

    21      64    1020   32    6  15.9

    28      43     795   26    5  18.5

Total     231    3675  106   22  15.9

Score: 3,675

Equipment

K3S + SPE 1k5 800W out (temp never got above 40C)

Ultrabeam VL640,  2 el on 40m, 3 el on 20-10m

73 Phil zl3p/zl3pah

VK7GN

Hi,

I didn’t hear VK5 at all in VK7. 

VK6 and VK4 were good and VK2 was okay also.

I did discover that  instant (nearly) beam reversal facility on the Ultrabeam (like steppir) that I have not used before is quite useful beaming east for LP Eu and N.America means I can then reverse quickly to get VK6 and Africa, VU etc.

One question, I only worked VK7BO, were there other VK7’s on? If not is there any advantage to VK7WIA versus VK7GN??

Martin VK7GN

VL6M and news about Steve VK6VZ

Hi Allan,

My log has been uploaded to RSGB. I second your thanks to the HQ stations. Condx seemed quite good, but I was troubled by broadband QRM sweeping across the HF bands at a repetition rate of approx 500mS. I wonder if anyone else noticed it, or whether it is local to me, I haven’t seen such QRM before and it has not been evident since.

My contest did not go as planned, due to a sleep deprivation, self inflicted PC catastrophe, resulting in 9 hours lost operating time. A further 3 hours was lost due to my 160m news broadcast of WIA/AR Newsline/Newswest and RAOTC news bulletins, on Sunday mornings. I managed to rescue my N1MM log from the mortally wounded PC, that no longer spoke to my TS-890 or the network, but by the time I had the log transferred and working on my IC-7610 PC, there was only 15 minutes of contest time left.

I guess you have heard that Steve, ‘6VZ was rushed to hospital, early Sunday morning, with an infection, following three recent kidney stone operations, so the VK6 contribution was largely thanks to Kev, ‘6LW. Steve is recovering following an IV injection of good juice. He should be out of dock by today.

So attached is my meagre contribution.

Thanks and 73, Phil VK6GX (VL6M).

Thanks to VK HQ Stations

Thank you to the VK HQ Station operators in the 2024 Commonwealth Contest. From the email comments received after the contest with the log summaries, your efforts are very much appreciated, particularly in the UK.

Alan VK2GR

VK5WIA observations

Alan,

My pleasure to run VK5WIA again, although I am almost sorry at how many non VK stations I did work. There were quite a few I managed to clean sweep and actually QSY/band hop to work them across all of the bands from 40-10m with. Still, if we were to favour just VK/ZL then I am sure that isn’t in the spirit of the contest either.

If anything, we need a system where the VK teams stations come looking for the HQ stations on the hour perhaps. My beam perhaps wasnt always pointing the best way for the east coast when I was working 15m/10m to G land but knowing to look for VK at a given time might help get things better set up to be heard? Even so, I also often found this year that the VK stations were inaudible here in VK5 as we were in the skip zone. Really poor signals were heard from VK2/3/4 and I rarely heard VK7 anywhere. There was also lots of echo and other horribleness on the signals caused by combined LP/SP/multiple loops around the planet effects that made weak sig CW very hard to copy for me. The Canadians at one point sounded like they were being drowned in auroral flutter too.

There are also some big hitting countries that we never hear. To date I have never worked ZS on CW from here on any band. The 9Ms, 9Vs, V8s were also conspicuous by their absence at this QTH.  A distinct lack of ZLs (until the last few hours) was also noted here. I also didnt hear any 5W, C2, 9Y, V2, V5, VP5, VP2 or 4S stations. I know there are stations in those places, but perhaps some effort needs to be done to reach out to more of them, particularly in the Asia/Pacific to get them enthused to get active for the weekend.

FWIW things to consider next year.

Finally,  I will also endeavour to have an 80m antenna back in the air next year so I can work more VKs of an evening.

Regards,

Grant  VK5GR / aka VK5WIA 

BERU G4FNL – Team GE

For the Commonwealth 2024 Contest (BERU) I was very kindly hosted by Chris G0DWV at his excellent station in Norfolk.

I’m not sure that I made the best use of his gear though. It takes a while to get familiar with a station and it’s set up – and I simply didn’t allow enough time to do that.

I thought that condx were pretty average and that activity levels were very much down on previous events. I was in the unassisted / 24-hour section. The SFI on Friday evening didn’t look too good and the k index was above 2, if I remember correctly.

It’s been a while since I was operating as a plain old G – and I’d forgotten how slow it can be. I was determined not to fall asleep during the night. I just about managed that aspect OK – but there were many times when I wondered whether I was making the best use of my time on the bands. Chris has a great set up – an Optibeam 17–4 at 100ft plus a separate tower with a 2el 40m Yagi, and yet another tower with a C31 Yagi, and also he has a 4 square on 80m, with beverages on receive too. So, I had all the gear I could want but I just didn’t seem to make it work as well as it should. So, I fear that operator efficiency was the problem. I apologise to Chris for the lack lustre performance on my part. Perhaps, I can try again next year?

Anyway, here are my numbers (I used N1MM which seems to calculate the score almost correctly – but I separately totted-up the score below – hopefully without errors – to enable you to see how my score compares.)

Band	QSOs (nett)	Bonus	HQ	Points	Dup
80	34	20	7	710	1
40	72	43	10	1420	0
20	105	52	14	1845	5
15	90	39	9	1410	3
10	29	14	5	525	0
Total	330	168	45	5910	9

I had thirteen 5 band and twenty-one 4 band QSOs.  My grateful thanks to all the HQ stations from the UK, Canada and Australia and to EVERYONE who I worked in the contest.

73 Graham G4FNL