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Reserve operators at M0RYB for CQ WW CW
Welcome to week two hundred and nineteen of NARC’s contest news.
Results:-
On VHF
The results of the 144MHz CW Marconi contest of 1st November were published on 28th November. Several NARC members entered. Myself, Stewart G4AFF, Jim, G3YLA and David, M9BLX in the 6h Single op fixed section and John, G8VPE in the Single operater fixed section. Conditions were good with contacts into OK, OL and Hb. Activity was, however, lower than last year from the UK by 40% compared to last year. John, G8VPE was 5th in section, David, M9BLX 13th, Jim, G3YLA 11th, Stewart G4AFF was 4th and I managed a 2nd in section. Hopefully activity will be back up again next year! Link to results here
This contest was part of the VHF championship. I’m pleased to report a second place once again this year in this series – link to this here
The results of the 70MHz UKAC of 20th November were released on 30th November. Conditions had been difficult for this one and there were quite a few UBNs. Our team of 3 members came in 5th and we remain 6th in this series. Link to results here
The results of he 50MHz UKAC of 13th November were released on 2nd December. Our team of 9 members managed a respectable 3rd place in this one and we are in 4th in this series. It was great to have a good turnout and good scores in this one. Leading scorer was Steve, M5BFL who came second in the open section. Link to results here
In the overall UKAC we are still running 6th in section out of 69 clubs so far. Of note, we are only 3 points below 5th place Gower/GwyrCC. Link to this here.
On HF
The results of the final contest of the RSGB Autumn series, the CW of 27/11/25 were released on 4th December. Once again, NARC’s team of 16 members just managed to beat Bristol’s team by the slimmest of margins to complete an across the board sweep of the series. Congratulations to all who entered. We won the Local clubs section with 82,300 points with Bristol in second on 45,416 points. Of some note is that the winners of the General clubs section, Echelford, achieved 52,663 points. Congratulations to Jon, G4IVV for being the leading scorer in our team. Congratulations to our President, Malcolm, G3PDH for being the leading scorer overall in the 100W unassisted section of the series and to Tracey, 2E0CEY for being the top scoring intermediate licence station in each mode of the series and in 24th place overall. NARC have, once again, won the Newbury Trophy. Link to results here
In the AFS Superleague championships so far NARC are now up into 4th place out of 28 clubs. Link to this here
This year’s HF championship results to date are at this link here
If people are entering other contests of whose results I am obviously unaware please e-mail me to let me know the outcome and I’ll mention it here.
Contests:-
On VHF
On Tuesday 2nd December the 144MHz UKAC ran. Conditions seemed pretty flat generally but some DX was worked by the leading stations by MS and AP reflection. 7 NARC members submitted entries. Stewart G4AFF managed DH3NAN at 758Km and I worked OZ6TY at 732Km. Link to claimed scores here
On Wednesday the 2m FT8 AC (2h and 4h sections) ran. Conditions were affected by a moderately strong auroral event which significantly interferes with FT8 decoding. So far no NARC entries have been received at RSGB although on a quick listen last night I did hear Alan G8OO working stations. Link to claimed scores, 2h here
On HF
Over the weekend 29th and 30th November the CQ Worldwide CW contest ran. This is one of the year’s major contests and the CW sections of the bands were jammed with wall-to-wall stations all weekend as conditions allowed. Several club members took part.
Peter M0RYB ran from his normally /p site as M0RYB in the Multi 2 low power section with Myself G4LPP, Chris G0TZZ and Kim G4WUG for company in the Loxlot team. Between us we did the full 48h operating 2 radios covering all bands. Dipoles for 160, 80 and 40m and a Cushcraft A3S for 20, 15 and 10m. Conditions seemed reasonably good and there was a fair bit of exotic DX about. It was a tiring but enjoyable event with excellent hospitality by Peter. Our results are here, obviously dependant on adjudication!
Also active was Stewart G4AFF as GE5E – here is a copy of his report:-
G4AFF operated as GE5E in the recent CQ WW CW event. This was a full power, assisted, single band (80m) entry. ‘Full power’ was actually about 800 watts, and assisted meant that the DX Cluster was used. No other assistance was provided, not even to make cups of tea. The station consisted of an Elecraft K3 with a quarter-wave (66ft) vertical and lots of quarter-wave radials (well, 40 or so). On receive there were also 3 beverages; one facing east (520ft), one west (600ft), and an unterminated shorter beverage (330ft) aligned north/south. A Ewe antenna was also available. The beverages were a game-changer providing an amazing extra 6db or more over noise compared to the vertical. The final totals were 1161 QSOs, 28 zones and 109 countries worked in 21 hours – final score 230,297. Not a record breaking score by some way, but fun nonetheless.
Stewart Cooper G4AFF
I also received this report from Tony G0OOR:–
Hi Phil.
Not sure if this is too late to put into newsletter but had a dabble in the CQWW CW contest over the last weekend. Set myself a target number of Q’s (400) and finished on 421 (80M- 59, 40M – 113, 20M – 77, 15M – 32, 10m – 140) for a points total of 205,973.
Plenty of DX worked on most continents but nothing new to add to my country score.
Hope you had a good time at Peters.
tony G0OOR
Also noted were entries from Tracey 2E0CEY, Bob 2E0OBO, Richard G4CDN (5.5h 80m single band 300QSOs, 71 DXCC, 14 zones), Jim G3YLA, and Mike, G4DYC. My apologies if I missed anybody. Link to logs received here
Please let me know if you were on in any other VHF or HF contests and I’ll put a summary in next week’s news.
Upcoming contests in the next 2 weeks (all times in UTC):-
On VHF / UHF / SHF
Before each of the 2m and 70cm UKACs there is an FM leg starting 1 hour before for 55 minutes. I hear almost no activity in this from here but others may have more luck! Rules etc on RSGBCC site.
% Sun 7th Dec. 1000-1400 144MHz AFS. We need as many as possible to turn out for this one please! This adds to the clubs affiliated societies contest league. Link here to rules
% Tue 9th Dec. 2000-2230 432MHz UKAC
% Wed 10th Dec. 1700-2100 432MHz FT8 AC 2h and 4h sections
% Thu 11th Dec. 2000-2230 50MHz UKAC
% Tue 16th Dec. 2000-2230 1.3GHz UKAC
% Thu 18th Dec. 2000-2230 70MHz UKAC
Also of interest for some on the vhf / uhf bands are the EU FT8 activity tests – see the following link for more information. These are on the first (144 MHz), second (432MHz) and third (1.3GHz) Wednesdays of each month. 1700-2000 Hrs EU FT8 series website
On HF
% Fri 5th Dec. 2200 to Sun 7th Dec. 1600 ARRL 160 meter contest CW – link here to rules
% Sat 6th Dec. 0000 to Sun 7th Dec. 2359 Kalbar contest, SSB – link to rules here
% Sat 13th Dec. 0000for 48h ARRL 10 meter contest. CW and Phone. Link to rules here
% Sat 13th Dec. 0000 to Sun 14th Dec. 2359 PODXS 070 club Triple Play Low Band Sprint PSK31 160, 80 and 40m – link to rules here
% Sat 13th Dec. 0600 to Sun 14th Dec. 1800h TRC Digital contest RTTY – link to rules here
% Sat 13th Dec. 1200 for 36h. SKCC Weekend Sprintathon CW – link to rules here
% Sat 13th Dec. 1300 to Sun 14th Dec. 1359 ARI 40/80 contest (Italy) – link to rules here
See Link to WA7BNM for other contests not mentioned above. There are several to choose from!
Wednesdays throughout the year, CW OPS 1 hour mini tests 13:00, 19:00, Thurs 03:00 and 07:00, exchange Name and G if not a member or CW OPS number if you are a member.
See CWOPS website for more details.
Also on Fridays 2000 to 2100 and Mondays 0000 to 0100 each week CW OPS runs the K1USN slow speed CW contests. Any speed up to 20wpm is acceptable. For rules see :- CW OPs SST page these contests are open to anyone.
All RSGB contest rules and further details plus log submission at RSGB contest site
A link to John 2E0TWQ’s site’s Narc contest history page – 2E0TWQ’s NARC contest results page
Contesting can be great fun but I know there’s a reluctance to step into unknown waters. It’s a great way of improving many aspects of our hobby including one’s own performance and the quality of your station. If you have any interest whatsoever please call in to the contest net on Friday evening at 9pm on 145.250MHz FM or speak to any of the regular contesters on 450. Or indeed email me!
Submissions or comments for this news to thedoctorphil@gmail.com
73 until next week,
Phil G4LPP