Radio Society of Great Britain. Official HF. Contest Results.

Results - SSB Field Day 2004.

Other check logs received with thanks:
G0VQR/P, GM8OEG, 9A5KV/P, OK1UU, N1BCL, G3VQO, K3ZO, N6QQ

SSB Field Day 2004

According to one log - “Weather brilliant if not too hot - thanks HFCC”. Well I’m not sure that the HF Contest Committee can take credit for the weather, but the event does seem to have been a resounding success. There were several stations reporting that this was either their first Field Day, or their first for many years. This was borne out by the bumper number of entries - 45 entries were received this year versus 36 in 2003, and 31 the year before. Many teams showed quite a wide spread of age groups and experience, and over a quarter of all the operators would be new to HF during the last 2 years.

It seems like the weather was kinder than propagation conditions. Most stations reported that the HF bands were in poor shape, though unfortunately this was quite typical of summer propagation in low sun-spot years. And it was the stations that managed to make good use of 15m and 20m that were the ones who came out on top. 10m showed little sign of opening and many stations showed a complete blank on that band.

Results
Congratulations go to the Bristol Contest Group, G6YB/P, who take the Northumbria Trophy for first place in the Open Section. Their outstanding HF band performance proved to be the deciding factor this year. They had the top band scores on 20m, 15m and 10m bands. Gravesend Radio Society, G3GRS/P, took second place by putting in an excellent show on the LF bands. They had the highest number of QSOs on both the 40m and 80m bands. Lichfield Amateur Radio Society, G3WAS/P, and the East Notts Contest Group, G3TBK/P, had almost identical QSO totals, but Lichfield’s superior multiplier total put them into third place.

In the Restricted Section the G3PSH Memorial Trophy was won this year for the first time by Contest Cumbria, G3IZD/P. Congratulations to this team of just two operators - G3IZD and G4IIY. Their score on 20m seems to have made all the difference over second placed Cray Valley Radio Society, G3RCV/P, who won the section last year. Third was Stratford upon Avon and District Radio Society, G0SOA/P.

Logs
In general the quality of the logs was excellent. All but six logs were in the recommended Cabrillo format this year. This may be an effect of the club championships, which are getting people used to submitting logs using Cabrillo. It may also be the improved Cabrillo support in logging programs. I agreed to swap logs with DARC who run the IARU Region 1 Field Day. This gave access to 250 logs from Germany, Russia and many other countries in Region 1. The conversion of these logs took some time, but the resulting database containing approx 90,000 QSOs enabled nearly 50% of QSOs to be cross-checked.

As usual some stations lost quite a few points by not correctly copying whether stations were signing /P. Some more subtle logging errors caused multipliers to be wrongly claimed. For example, the station signing AH6JN/4 was in Florida and should really have been logged as AH6JN/W4 to avoid being the logging software counting it as the Hawaiian Islands. Also a few groups thought they had worked Guantanamo Bay with the KG4 prefix. However, KG4+three letters is actually allocated to the mainland W4 call area. Sorry, folks.

Please remember to edit the Cabrillo file and check the header information before sending it. It is also helpful if you add some SOAPBOX: lines to give information about your station, antennas, and some comments. No summary files are needed with Cabrillo, but you need one if you use other formats.

I am very grateful to Steve, G3UFY, for his help in double checking the results. This was done to see that everything was fair and above board, due to my own operation with G6YB/P.

Band Conditions
The LF bands were the life-blood of the contest for many stations, especially in the Restricted section. Several reported a high static noise level however, which made reception quite difficult at times. On Sunday morning 40m produced some VE5, VE6 and VE7s around 0400Z to 0500Z and a good crop of ZLs between 0500Z and 0700Z. There was activity on 20m for most of the contest, but only a few were able to keep a run going late into the night. In the early morning there was a good opening to VK and ZL. 15m was open to the USA on Saturday afternoon and to the Far East and Japan just before the end of the contest. 10 metres was pretty dead throughout. However a few brief flurries of activity on Sunday morning did produce some QSOs and even some DX from Qatar, A71EM, and Angola, V55O/P. In fact V55O/P was quite a force on all bands finishing in Region 1 Field Day with 1062 QSOs.

Mixed feelings were expressed for the All Asia contest, which shares the same weekend as SSB Field Day each year. It does create additional interest and activity even though some stations find it difficult to deal with. Generally Asian stations are happy to work UK portables. It speeds things along if you give the AA exchange, which is your age, as well as the Field Day serial number without being asked. Of course non-Asian stations operating in the AA contest will not want to work Europe, as they have nothing to gain and time to lose.

Soapbox
G4ARN/P reported: “Operated stn at Norfolk Police Gala day again from Norfolk Amateur Radio Club display stand. Some newer licensees introduced to contesting and PC logging”. I’m sure PC Logging was pleased to meet them !

The good weather figured in many comments. From G3RCM/P: “Great weather in the Peak District this weekend… G4BTS/P were just down the hill from us in the 'Fox House' pub car-park - so we had to pay them a visit. Not sure if this had an adverse effect on our score but it added to the pleasure of the event”. and from M0NBG/P: “Great WX all weekend … band conditions quite stable from our location with stations available for the entire 24 hours”. G4STV/P wrote: “WX was superb so the social side was just as much fun. Our first outing for SSBFD, it won't be our last”. The weather wasn’t so kind with GM0ADX/P north of the border: “Usual problems with weather, generator and antennas but still great fun. It won't be field day if it all worked first time would it?”

Murphy is never far away during these contests, as G5RS/P found out: “We had some serious problems with RF getting into the equipment. We tried to resolve this and effect a change in set-up wasting best part of an hour and still needed several re-boots of the computer after that.” At G4HRS/P: “Pic-A-tune started smoking!” while a few problems at M0PDC/P don’t seem to have affected morale: “Thoroughly enjoyed the contest apart from the few power problems forcing us onto batteries for a while. Can't wait till next year. Amazing what you can work on such a basic setup!”

G6YB/P reported: “The lack of a second usable receiver to hunt mults will be reflected in our totals, it also made decisions of band changes complete guess work. 80 and 40 had high levels of static all night, but we were lucky that our site and antennas let us work 20m to North America instead.” Comments from G3TBK/P: Had a good run into US, and several to JA. Good that the All-Asia contest is on, gives a lot more to work, even if frustrating at times that others won't give us a multiplier”. M5ARC/P wrote: “10M was dead except for V55O/P, but we couldn't work him. Static was high all weekend on 80 / 40 / 20.”

It seems that there was quite a variety of experience taking part. For instance, at G4BP/P: Thoroughly enjoyed by all participants with plenty of support for the erection and dismantling of the station. Nice to see newer club members intermediate and full licence holders participating. Fine new site beside the Pike Lake on Lord Wykeham's estate”. And at G0SOA/P: “A simple set up as usual with a single TX/RX and a team of 7 OPs with an age range of 56 years!”

Altogether it was a very enjoyable way to spend a late summer weekend. So make sure that the 3rd and 4th September is in your diaries for this year.

Alan Hydes, G3XSV