ZF2CA antennas Left to Right. Mosley 48ft Boom LPDA, Force12 C31XR, Stack of JK Mid-Tri (Top is JK MidTri-40) Force12 Sigma 280S, 80m 2-ele and JK402C 40m 2-ele.
With the SFI rising steadily during 2022, anticipation for much better propagation in the 85th Commonwealth Contest than in recent years was high, however the A index reached 20 by Saturday morning and stayed at that level for most of the next 24 hours. Overall QSO numbers ended up similar to 2021 but there was much more activity on both 15m and 10m. Total submitted logs were 268, showing consistent support for this contest over the last decade.
The number of entrants appear to have been slightly reduced this year . Some entrants commented that there seemed to be less activity from VE this year.
But actually it seems there must have been other attractions or was it that last year was one of the higher years for participation. Or perhaps the problems in the wider world rather sapped peoples’ enthusiasm. Indeed one might just comment that a stable number of entrants seems to have been reached, maybe a bit more energetic marketing might help especially for some of the more unusual prefixes – a point for next year.
Much the same comments might be made about the entrants by section.
And indeed the balance between assisted and un-assisted has levelled off too as the chart shows.
Travel restrictions, national and international, due to Covid-19 were still in place throughout the world last year in differing levels of severity, this meant very few travellers who have been a regular feature for many years adding to the variety of Commonwealth Call Areas (CCAs) available. At last the Covid had started to retreat and so our intrepid travellers have again set out to activate some of the rarer Commonwelth prefixes. Travel restrictions have been relaxed further over recent months but still caused some difficulty for those that ventured from home this year to activate a CCA so a huge vote of thanks to all the travellers.
The following call areas were active but did not submit logs: 3B8, 4S7, 7Q, 8Q, 9J, AP, VK8, ZB2, ZS1,3 and 6.
Propagation
Although entrants always seem to feel that propagation should improve more rapidly as the solar flux and sunspots increase there are of course other factors which can dampen things down in practice, such as CMEs and geomagnetic activity which often are more common as the sun becomes more active. ‘Conditions seemed OK – and certainly a bit better on the Sunday morning on 10 and 15m. The K index was at 2 at the start – but the solar flux did peak to around 126 over the weekend. So, not ideal – but it could have been much worse’ (G4FNL) and ‘conditions were pretty average here (what is about the BERU and a high A index?)’ (ZL3GA).
10m. Looking in a bit more detail shows that 10 was showing more life than last year – moving into its spotty phase some might say. Bear in mind that from the UK stations had contacts with 5B, 5X, 5Z, 9H, 9J, C5, VE3, VK6, ZF, ZS(?) on 10 so a rather better count than last year.
15m. Showed a lot more life than last year ZL6HQ was one of the outstanding signals
20m. As usual the money band but that said the patterns of short and long paths appear to be changing a weaker LP from UK to VK/ZL and some of the night time SP openings were not very good either.
40m. As has been stated many times 40 is one of the bands where it is essential to pull out the bonusses. Better get your timing right though.
80m. Noise and rather flat conditions, mind you if you were trying to make sense of 80 the widely different views from around the Commonwealth took some understanding.
Open Section Single Operator Unassisted
This year the winner of the Senior Rose Bowl is Colin (G4CWH) operating from the Cayman Islands Club station as ZF2CA. Colin has been a regular entrant for several years and has steadily worked his way up the leader board. The station is fully equipped for SO2R operation with a superstation set of antennas, see heading photo above. The station comprises a pair of Elecraft K3s with associated amplifiers and a sophisticated control system which allows full remote operation. Colin commented, ‘ The station has permanently benefitted from the remoting project and I was able to use it remotely last year…. Friday was spent just learning how to drive it, plus enough food prep to avoid significant stops.’ This picture shows just how sophisticated the station is! ‘I was on and ready on 80 and 40 by 09.30 but it was all very quiet, quieter than usual. …..Propagation seemed reasonable but rate was a bit slow…..40 remained reasonable but 80 was at all times quite a slog and my 80m Q count says it all. Static was mercifully low, signals were just weak. Then to 15 which was in reasonable state and even 10 seemed pretty decent at times, mostly slowed down by fewer people being there …. once the sun had risen in VK/ZL 15 seemed best for rate, but 10 was sometimes the better signal and twenty often hard or impossible.’
The Colonel Thomas Rose Bowl is awarded to the leading UK&CD Open Unassisted station, last year it was won by the closed possible margin of just five points and it was almost as close this year. Don, G3BJ wins the Col Thomas Rose Bowl with a lead of just ten points over Nick M5DX (G4FAL), Don was just pipped at the post last year. Don found,’ propagation was “modest” in most parts – a great shame after some signs of a lift in HF condition over recent months. The contests started well – at the start, of course, there’s lots of stuff to work. It was mainly 14 and 21 MHz, with short forays to 28 for the odd station that was audible. Most people were happy to move band on request, which made it fun to notch up the bonus points. I could not find sustained activity on 28 MHz on Saturday. Supported by a good clutch of VE stations, the travellers and reasonable numbers of VK and ZL, Saturday was quite enjoyable.’
In the 12 hour open section the winner of the Ross Carey Rose Bowl was Dave, G4BUO,
The highest placed 12 hour non-UK&CD station in the Open Unassisted section is Barry VK2BJ who receives the VP8GQ trophy.
Restricted Section Single Operator Unassisted
The Junior Rose Bowl goes to the winner of the Restricted Unassisted section, this year it is a traveller, Mike G3VYI activating Gozo as 9H6YI, in second place is another traveller, this time to The Gambia, G3XTT as C56DF. As you can read Mike had a storm over night so whereas things looked neat and tidy on early Saturday by Sunday things were a bit more disorganised.
The RSGB John Dunnington G3LZQ Trophy is awarded to the leading UK&CD station in the Restricted Unassisted section, this year to John G4CZB, up from second placed UK&CD station last year
Assisted Sections
For the third year running John VE3EJ achieved the highest Open Assisted score and is therefore awarded the Rosebery Shield. Second place in the Open Assisted section is VE3NNT. In the Restricted single operator Assisted section the leading station is Mike G3P (G3WPH). In second place is G3RLE.
QRP
There were eleven entrants in the QRP/5W from four different CCAs, leading the table for the second year running is Bill GM4M (GM4UBJ) with an Assisted entry. In second place and the highest placed Unassisted entry is Alan M7R (G0TPH), Alan is therefore awarded the Lilliput Cup as the leading Unassisted station. Joint runners-up Unassisted are GW0VSW and M1KTA, runner-up Assisted is M8M (G0JJG). Credit to all entrants for taking part with low power and generally simple antennas.
Open-Remote
The Open-Remote category was introduced in 2019 and has attracted at least one entry each year to date. There were three entries this year from three different CCAs, George VA2EBI (photo here ) is the leading station with ZF2VE as runner up.
Commonwealth Medal
A Commonwealth Medal is awarded to Kevin VK6LW (this year VK6T) for many years of supporting the Commonwealth Contest and this year with podcasts . Kevin often features in logs on all five bands with a good selection of antennas for both receive and transmit. And you can hear the Travellers Tales here too from Kevin’s podcast.
Travellers
And what would BERU be without travellers, certain bonuses. This year travellers went to C5, V3, 9H, 5X, ZF. Every year at least one Commonwealth Traveller Certificate is normally awarded to reward the achievement of activating a CCA not represented the previous year. This year a certificate is awarded to Don C56DF (G3XTT) with antennas on the half built roof next door.
Iain G4SGX was active from the station in Belize which he used last year. The station had been destroyed by fire and so he had more problems to getting things working to his satisfaction.
And here are some more very amusing comments from Colin ZF2CA.
Multi-op section.
There were two entries in the Multi-op section, the leading station is VE9ML operated by VE9ML and VE9BK with VU2REC (VU2VTI and VU2XE) in second place.
HQ Stations
Since GB5CC first appeared for the 50th Commonwealth Contest, HQ stations are now a regular feature and there were 16 active this year, five from the UK&CD, three from Canada, one from New Zealand and seven from Australia. Once again the Australians almost managed a complete set of eight HQ stations representing all the mainland states/territories, they will try again for a full house next year. Leading the table for 2022 is GB5CC operated by Chris GM3WOJ and in second place is ZL6HQ (Jacky ZL3CW). The next four positions are taken by UK&CD stations, in seventh place from Western Australia is VK6WIA (Peter VK6RZ) and the highest placed Canadian station is VE7RAC (Brian VE7JKZ) representing the western-most province of British Columbia.
Click on the call for reports from G6XX, GW6XX, VK1WIA. VK5WIA, VK7WIA
And some more comments from GW6XX here and here.
Teams
In the team competition, Australia 1 with a slightly reduced score from last year are the winners by a very clear margin. After an absence of two years, the Quake Contesters were back and sweep into second place just ahead of Australia 2. World Travellers Plus made a strong challenge but had to settle for fourth behind Australia 2.
Soapbox
Click on the call for more from G4KNO, MM9I, G4PIQ, VK4SN, VK2GR, VK2PN
Adjudication
This contest generally has many contacts with weak signals at both ends and coupled with high noise levels now commonplace, it is to all entrants’ credit that the overall error rate is usually low. A notable exception again this year were the received reports and callsigns of the HQ stations where failing to log the ‘HQ’ suffix or adding it to a non-HQ station was a frequent loss of points, and once again GB5CC had many variations in the logs with ‘G6HCC’ being very common.
The FULL RESULTS are here on the RSGB HFCC Pages
Next year 2023
See you all next year on 11 and 12th March 2023.
Commonwealth Contest 