2021 Results

Despite, or perhaps because of, the pandemic and the many restrictions on travel there was a high turnout for this years contest. 290 entrants logs were received. Participation increased in all sections especially in the HQ stations (see later ). The participation in this contest has now increased threefold over the level on 1996, but that said, total entrants appears to have now hit a plateau.

But there still has been growth in G and VE entrants over the past 4 years but ZL participation is slowly falling. Hopefully this will improve as propagation improves.

As noted last year the balance between Unassisted or ‘classical’ entries and Assisted seems to have leveled off about 50%.

Propagation

I had hoped to be writing some better news on propagation this year but despite some encouraging propagation from the UK to south east asia in the hours before the contest started the A stuck at 12 and the K at 3 dampened things down significantly. Conditions turned out to be pretty challenging with bands opening and closing without warning and much propagation being spotty at best. On 80 there were some openings around sunset and sunrise but after about 01:00 until sunrise in the UK the bands seemed very quiet indeed.That said strong signals into the UK on 10m from 5B, 5Z and 9J made for some very welcome extra interest. Otherwise most of the 10m QSOs were with HQ stations in the same or adjacent call areas. Conditions on 15m on the North Atlantic path were variable starting direct but switching later to skew path and weaker signals. 20 and 40 carried most of the traffic as is usual but opeings on 80m were commented by several entrants as very good… if you knew when to look. The changed timings of openings on LF meant that close attention to several bands at the same time was important. More analysis here.

The following call areas were active but did not send in logs: 3B8, 5X, 9J, 9M2, 9V, 9Z, AP, V3, VP8, VU, ZL4, ZS1, 2 and 6.

Section Reports

Open Section

Leading entrant and winner of the Senior Rose Bowl is Jeff, VY2ZM ( last years winner of the 12 hour section ), “Apart from the generally wretched condx, it was fun on 20m/40m and 80m with lots of activity to fill the log.”

XL3A/VE3AT, last years winner, is runner up. In third place was Dave, VE9CB.  VK6LW was highest placed VK station in 5 place.

 

The highest placed UK station in 7th place in the Open section is Keith GM4YXI. He takes the Col.Thomas Rose Bowl for the first time. But only just…only 5 points clear of Don G3BJ.  Keith commented ” 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”. And ” 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…”.

The VP8GQ trophy for the leading 12 hour station goes to Vlad, VE3JM in 5th place.

Vlad has evidently been making good use of his team prize from 2015.

 

Restricted Section

The leading station in this section was Brian, VK3MI who operated from a quiet rural location rather than his noisy home QTH. “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.” “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.”

Runner up was VE3BR.

The leading UK station in this section and winner of the G3LZQ trophy was Mike G3VYI. ” 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…”

 

And leading 12 hour UK station and winner of the Ross Carey trophy was Alan, G3XAQ.

Assisted sections

Open Assisted

The Rosebery Shield for the leading asssted station goes to John VE3EJ. Runner up was Barry, VK2BJ. Highest placed G station was Dave, G3TBK.

Restricted Assisted

The leading restricted assisted station was Ivan 9H1PI. G3RLE was runner up ahead of G3PHO.

 

G3PHO … started off well and by midnight was 4 hours ahead of where I was last year. However a “Black Hole” descended in the middle of the night and by 6am I was virtually at the same point as last year. Heard ZLs on 80m but no QSOs on that band. Good opening to VK/ZL on Sunday morning. Chased 9V1YC for ages on 20m on Sunday but he couldn’t copy me. Ended up with exactly the same number of Qs as last year but 75 points more. Outstanding signals from 9J2BO ZF2CA VK6LW. 

 

QRP

Despite the anticipated difficult propagation conditions there was a welcome increase in QRP/5W entrants from just two last year to eleven this year. The highest placed Unassisted entrant receives the Lilliput Cup and for the second year running it goes to Eric Castro VA3AMX.

In second place and the highest Assisted entry is Bill Tracey GM4M (GM4UBJ)… “Not so much Search and Pounce as Hide and Seek !..”

 

Runner-up Unassisted is G4GIR and Assisted is G0KYA. Credit to all entrants for taking part with low power and generally simple antennas.

 

The Commonwealth Medal this year is awarded to James, 9V1YC. Its pretty noisy for radio in Singapore these days so we all really appreciate the QSOs, everyone a bonus, he has given out over the years. Many thanks, James.

 

Commonwealth Traveller

Every year at least one Commonwealth Traveller Certificate is normally awarded to highlight the efforts of all those that activate commonwealth call areas that are either remote or have low population/activity. With so many International travel restrictions this was difficult or just not possible this year but as indicated above there was one activation of note by Andrew VK1DA who travelled from his home in New South Wales to a site south of Canberra to put VK1WIA on the air. Andrew is therefore awarded a 2021 Commonwealth Traveller Certificate. “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! “

Remote Operation

With international travel off the agenda this year three entrants used reote stations. The leading station ZF2CA was run by Colin, G4CWH from his UK QTH….”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.”

Team Contest

In the team event Australia have continued their dominance of the top spot for the fifth year in a row although their lead has been narrowing over the last three years. Canada #1 are in second place and the second Australian team in third. Australia have been honing a strategy to hold on to a leading position, including encouraging each VK call area to have its own WIA station ( see later ). Under these mediocre conditions this strategy has born fruit and taken with the ‘Latitude Factor’ given them the opportunity to field a good team effort.

s	Club	Call	Score	Call	Score	Call	Score	Call	Score	Call	Score	Total
1	Australia 1	VK6LW	8680	VK2BJ	8227	VK2GR	7337	VK6VZ	7307	VK4CT	6563	38,114
2	Canada #1	VE3EJ	8295	VY2ZM	8130	XL3A	7155	VE9CB	6490	VE3JM	6200	36,270
3	Australia 2	VK3MI	7424	VK4SN	5227	VK7BO	5059	VK2PN	4716	VK6HG	2570	24,996
4	Canada #2	VE3RZ	5065	VE3NNT	3965	VE3BR	3680	VE5MX	3080	VA3GUY	740	16,530
5	Atlantic A1A’s	VE1RSM	4020	VA1RST	3800	VE1ANU	3125	VE1ZU	2290	VE1CEN	2100	15,335
6	Canada #3	VE9ML	4360	VE9HF	3530	VE9AA	3335	VE3TM	2150	VE9OA	1570	14,945
7	Essex CW ARC	G4PVM	3530	G3XLG	3500	M5D	2525	M4J	1885	G8CW	1635	13,075
8	Grimsby Mariners	G3TBK	4805	G3SJJ	3240	G4EBK	1740	G4LPD	1165	G6N	660	11,610
9	Balunmasters	G3VYI	2835	G4CZB	2655	G3WRR	1015	G4WGE	290			6,795
10	IVARC Veterans	G3OTK	2195	G4GBP	1280	G3XSD	930	G8XEV	660			5,065

The UK teams were weakened this year by the effort to mount a large number of HQ Stations which meant that some of the better equipped UK stations were not operating as normal entrants or did not operate or form a team.. Hopefully this can be addressed next year.

HQ Stations

Finally to the HQ section, a huge thank you to all those involved with getting 26 on the air of which 25 submitted logs. Leading the table is GB5CC operated by Nick G4FAL with GW6XX (op. GW3YDX) not far behind in second place. There were seven entries from Canadian stations of which VA3RAC (op. VE3ZI) was the highest placed in 6th overall and three entries from New Zealand with ZL6HQ (op. ZL2BR) their leader in 9th overall. Australia also fielded seven stations with VK7WIA (op. VK7GN) highest placed in 12th overall.

The other UK ops were –

G6XX – G3PJT Bob

GD6XX – MD0CCE Bob

GI6XX – GI4DOH Richard

GM6XX – GM3WOJ Chris

GW6XX – GW3YDX Ron

G3DR – G3LET Peter

GM3DR – GM3WUX Terry

There were issues with logging software not recocognising the different HQ stations, especially those in ZL. GB5CC consistently catches people out who don’t expect ‘GB5’ and log ‘G6H’ or some other variant. After some 35 years, regular entrants should be getting used to it! Well you would think so.

There will be a separate page / article on the role of HQ stations since the first use of GB5CC at the 50th year of the Commonwealth Contest.

Soapbox index

ZL3BR, ZL3AB, ZL2BR, VA2RAC, VE3HX, VE7RAC, G4BUO, G4DRS, M7T/G3YYD, G3WGN, G3DR, MM9I, VK2GR, VK2PN, VK5WIA, GI6XX, ZL3AB, VA1RST, VE9AA, GB5CC,

And a breakdown of the top ten radios used by Bob G4DBW.

 

 

Adjudication Comments

With so much different logging software and still a few paper logs used for this event there are always a few issues to resolve with entrants before adjudication begins. This time there was also a problem with the adjudication software which could not cope with some callsign formats. Thanks to Mike G0GJV for rapidly producing a software upgrade that allowed adjudication to begin with the minimum of delay. Incorrect calculation of their score concerned some entrants and while it is always nice to know one’s claimed score when submitting a log, entrants are assured that the adjudication software always recalculates the correct score as part of the process and any numbers in the log header are ignored. Full results are here.

Next Year

The 85th contest will be on 12 and 13 March 2022. CU there !